Second TPMS Question

Don't overthink it.

Just decide which set you want the winter tires to be(I chose Set 2) and add them as a new set. Then in the spring, you can install the summer tires and either try them as Set 1 or just treat them as a new set and overwrite whatever's there.

Just plan on a good half hour or so if you want to be certain it's 100% ready for your wife. After telling the car you've switched tires(do this away from your house if that's where you're storing the other set), you'll get a TPMS indicator light for maybe 5min of driving until the car recognizes the sensors and figures out which corner each is on. The light will go off once the sensors are initialized, but it can take about 30min of driving at 40mph+ until they're fully recognized and calibrated. You'll see when it's done when the individual tire pressure readings return on the TPMS screen.

Now, you don't really need to do anything once the TPMS light goes away(the car does everything on its own), but driving it yourself until it finishes calibrating avoids a situation where your wife happens to look at the pressure screen early and comes home to ask, "Honey, what did you do to the car?"


p.s. I'm sad that I just had to remove the new wheels for the winter. I'm keeping the Prime wheels for summer, and I permanently put my winter tires on my original wheels. (After coating both the wheels and tires with ceramic coatings. CarPro C.Quartz DLux on the wheels and C.Quartz Black Out on the tires. The new Prime wheels/tires will get the same treatment in the spring.)

 

Just curious: 5th gen supports recognition of two sets of tpms sensors. And I believe it's capable of recognizing the alternate set when you swap those wheels in? Is an initial introduction still required with techstream,, say at dealership?

 

You do everything with the car. No dealership required.

I'm going off of memory here, but I think this is the basic set of commands: (the wording is mostly wrong, but I think the functions are correct)

1. Add Set A - use this when adding a new set of sensors, or remapping a set of sensors to the other save position
2. Add Set B - ditto
(each of these choices will almost certainly need 30min+ of driving to completely finish)

3. Switch to Set A - use this when you're swapping to a set you previously added
4. Switch to Set B - ditto
(these can take up to 30min to finish, but often take much less as long as the car's battery hasn't been disconnected/depleted since the last time)

5. Rotate Tires - use this when you've rotated your tires


So the normal progression would be that the car comes with a set of tires that are set to Set A(1) as the default. If you add a second set of wheels, you first add them as Set B(2). Then when it's time to switch back to Set A, you use the switch function(3).

In my case, I got a new set of wheels that I wanted to use as the summer set(A), while my original wheels became my winter set(B). So the first thing I did(even before I got the new wheels) was to remap my original wheels as Set B(2). Then, when I installed my new wheels, I set them to Set A(1). When I put my winter wheels back on a couple weeks ago, I wasn't completely certain if I had actually done all this, so I tried (4) but was prepared to do (2) again if the car didn't recognize them. I've both disconnected my battery AND drained it flat in the last few months, so it took the whole 30min of driving to finish recognizing them.

 

I don't know what the actual range is, so I just drove a few blocks away to a convenient and empty parking lot before starting the swap in the settings. I suspect the end of the driveway is all you really need, but why take chances when you're going to do a little highway driving afterward anyway?

It's possible you might get a TPMS warning light while on the way to wherever)I didn't, but it was only the few blocks), but that will go away once you program the second set.


Or to say it another way:
1. Swap wheels
2. Drive a short distance away to get out of range of the old sensors (TPMS light possible)
3. Program or swap to the new sensors using the steering wheel buttons
4. Go for a drive until you get pressure readings in the four tires