TPMS and Winter Wheels/Tires

TPMS in other cars (Gen3 Prius and Subaru in my household) will flash for several miles, then stay on steady. No fire.

But between those two cars, TPMS has given me early rolling warning on 3 out of 4 leaks -- one slow, one medium, and one very fast. (The fourth went flat while parked for several days.) One even happened in a winter set, on a road trip where I initially forget to reprogram that set's sensor codes into the car when swapping just before departure, so my spouse made me turn around to go home and fix it. So I'm now a believer in having TPMS in winter wheel sets too.

I have the ATEQ tools to read and program sensor codes, but it may be more cost effective to find clone-able sensors, and have them programmed to match your factory sensors. The U.S. car makers have systems in which the car automatically detects and learns the new codes, but most foreign brands are not yet doing this.

 

My experience with Gen3 and winter tires (no TPMS):

I keep my regular wheels (with TPMS) in the garage where I park my car. After I've switched over to winter tires, I can drive for 20 minutes before the TPMS warning light starts flashing and then after another minute, solid light.

When I return home and park in the garage, the car will usually reassociate with the TPMS sensors in my regular tires and the light will turn off. (You can either sit there with the car on when you return and wait for the light to go off, or when you start it next time, wait until the TPMS light goes off.) Once the light goes off again, you have 20 minutes before the light will come back on again. The light will stay on until it can reassociate with the regular tires in the garage. If you don't store your regular tires near the car, then once that light goes on, it will stay on until you put your regular tires back on.

 

I have a separate set of steel wheels shod with snow tyres. In the past I've just ignored the TPMS "NagLight" but recently I bought a set of these:

…which I can transfer to the snow shoes when they get put on next week!

…and at $83 they're cheaper than paying the dealer to re-register the wheels twice per year
…and I get to see the tyre temps also!

 

We got our car Nov 08, almost 7 years ago. Within a week of purchase, with light snow falling, I was at another dealership (our selling dealership was out to lunch on snow tires, rims) getting Michelin X-Ice mounted on Corolla steel rims. The service writer asked if I wanted tpms sensors, while shaking his head empatically...

I'd already resolved not to, not sure how much I knew about Toyota tpms at that time, but I had an inkling it was an expensive hassle to maintain two sets of sensors. Though maybe that's loosening up a little now.

When the snows are on the OEM's sit in stack maybe a foot from the front bumper, in the garage. So in our case the car maybe get's "reacquainted" every time we pull in? Not sure. Anyway, there's a little orange light, occasionally blinking, occasionally solid. It's diminutive, less in-your-face than the passenger seat air bag status light, no big deal.

 

It most certainly is.

I didn't make the choice to maintain multiple sensor sets until my household had two TPMS vehicles. And even then, the tool cost for reprogramming at home still makes this a questionable choice.

Drivers who are diligent about checking tire pressures, glancing at tires before hopping into the car, and recognize the road feel of low pressure, need not feel guilty about choosing to skip TPMS in their second wheel sets. This system is geared towards a different group of drivers, those who rarely or never check, and won't recognize a deflating tire until they hear a rim on the ground or broken sidewall pieces flapping. And unfortunately, this system is priced accordingly.

 

I miss tpms on our snows, would really prefer they did have tpms. It's a trade-off, due to the ham-fisted tpms implementation on the Prius, which doesn't allow easy integration of two (or more) sets of sensors.

 

Just picked up winter wheels for the wife’s rave4 hybrid, e jabber took the new TpMS out to the car, and read the code of the wheel on the car, put the new tpms in the device and registered the code from the wheel on the ca to the new tpms, now both sets of wheels work with the car, the tpms ar 22.50$ each.

Or

Put a piece of electrical tape over the light on the dash, I prefer the safety features to work.

 

Sounds interesting.

I don't bother with that, I'm a real tough guy.

 

And the ham-fisted approach isn't unique to Prius, it seems to be the norm for most non-domestic brands.

I commonly insult the domestic car brands for being cheap and backwards, but this is one of the categories where they are ahead.

 

The ATEQ tool really simplifies the TPMS problem.
For years, I've simply ignored the light when the snows were on.
Now, it's an extra couple of minutes when I do the tire swap to plug the ATEQ into my computer, load the data for the proper car and then load the right sensor IDs into the car...

It's free to ignore the light...
It costs about $135 for each car you want to add a second set of TPMS sensors to and another $120 for the ATEQ tool.
In my experience, snow tires don't last more than about 5 seasons and since TPMS sensors don't last too much longer than that, you need to replace them each time you replace the tires. That translates to about $30/year to have TPMS sensors on your snow tires.

 

The ATEQ Quickset TPMS programming tool sure is quick and easy to use - less than five minutes per vehicle when doing the winter/summer changeover - would take even less time if I ran the ATEQ software on our laptop PC instead of taking the Quickset into the house to attach it to a desktop PC to download the sensor ID's for the next vehicle I'm going to do. (The Quickset can hold the winter and summer sensor ID's for only one vehicle at a time.)

After I plug the Quickset into a vehicle diagnostic port and press the Snowflake (winter) or Sun (summer) button, uploading the ID's for the winter or summer sensors to the vehicle ECU is instantaneous. Downloading the sensor ID's from a PC to the Quickset is also instantaneous.

I can be as "diligent about checking tire pressures" as I can but that isn't going to help in a situation like I encountered a while back when I picked up a nail while as I was driving the "back way" out of Mr. K's Farmhouse Restaurant in Abilene, Kansas and started driving the 75 mph speed limit on I-70. If the dashboard warning light hadn't come on, I might have driven until the tire was trashed/blown/shredded and ended up on the shoulder of the Interstate highway with traffic whizzing by me or worse. As it was, the warning light gave me time to exit the highway to a safe place. And this doesn't include the multiple flat tires my wife has had while driving by herself. Each time the warning light gave her time to get to a repair shop.

The price for the ATEQ Quickset has fallen recently - currently $120 from Tire Rack and $130 from Amazon Prime. It paid for itself the first day I used it and I've used it many times since that.

 

.... which is an absolute bargain for the added safety and convenience - especially in Winter when dealing with a flat tire in slush and snow can be particularly unpleasant.

 

Do note that the ATEQ Quickset cannot discover the ID codes of sensors, it must be provided with the codes. If you can download them from the car, e.g. the factory set, fine. If your tire seller gives you the codes, fine.

If not (or if that information has been lost or overwritten), and you must read the codes yourself, then another tool is needed. And the ATEQ tool for that is pricier than the Quickset.

 

Is the id code printed on the sensor?

I appreciate that likely involves dismounting the tire, just curious.

 

Yes, at least the ones I've bought and also on the box label. I've been buying the sensors for our winter wheels at Costco.

 

The sensors I have purchased do have the IDs printed on them.
OR, most tire shops can read the sensors for you without unmounting the tire...
If you have a relationship with one of them, I don't see why they would even charge you.. It's worth asking around.

 

I purchased the Denso 500103 (550-0103) sensors last time I purchased snow tires.
They work fine with a 2010 Prius. Rock Auto currently lists them at $31.79 each.
The latest Denso catalog indicates that for the 2016+ Prius', you should have a slightly newer version DENSO 5500105 (550-0105).
I haven't tried the older ones on my prime yet but I assume either should work just fine as they are both 315MHz sensors.
When I do my tire swap in a couple weeks, I'll verify.

 

That does sound like a PITA.
I've only looked into relearning the TPMS for the Sonic. It just needs an $80 gadget. Put the car in relearn mode. Take the gadget to each wheel in the proper order. The gadget triggers the tire sensor to send a "here I am" signal to the car. That's it.

Older models may not have needed the gadget. Just deflate and re-inflate the tire would trigger the sensor sending its code.

A downside to this system is that it doesn't appear a way to set the warning light to a different pressure.

 

I'm not familiar with this thing you call a "Sonic". Does whatever you are talking about work on a Prius?