Good day. Am new to this chat. Have 2010 Prius. Live in NH and we do get snow in the winter. Put winter tires on exisitng rims but do not like to pop the tires on and off for summer to winter. Bought a set of 2007 OEM rims but they do not have the pressure sensors. Do I really need to get them to avoid the flashing light? If not, are valve stems available tham will fit? thank you, priusnh.
Yes, you need TPMS sensors in your winter tire rims and also to reprogram your car's computer to recognize them. Your dealer can do it for you, but it costs much more than most people want to pay. There is a tool you can find that can reprogram the car for different winter/summer sensors, look for "ATEQ TPMS QuickSet". TireRack used to sell them but didn't the last time I checked. The other option is a small piece of black tape to put over the light.
You can pick up the sensors for around $60 for a set of 4 on ebay. From my research online, I found out the following: Toyota Part #: 42607-33011 Pacific Part #: PMV-107J You'll still need to have the "rebuild kit" but a tireshop will have those on hand and they're about $5/each. I believe the seller I used was OEWHEELSLLC or something along those lines. It seems this is the same sensor across several toyota years & models.
Honestly, I just look at the light and check tires at least monthly, like I used to before electronics made my life easier.
+1 Kinda funny: I think our car detects the stack of OEM tires (with sensors) in the garage and temporarily shuts off the warning, every time we pull into the garage with (sensorless) snows. When you drive at night there's a green light that indicates headlights are on. When you drive with snows without sensors, you see an orange light, in the same area. No big deal, I would not throw money at this.
It depends upon how close you get to the sensors when you power the car on/off. I had my summer tires w/ sensors in the garage last winter and if I was parked next to the garage (closer to the sensors) it would register them. If I parked in front of the garage, it wouldn't sense them. I think the distance is close to about 10 feet of range for them, in my guess. The only reason I have separate sensors in my winter tires, is because during winter I'm less pro-active on checking the pressures in the wheels. It's cold out, and I don't wanna do it, lol. The biggest headache to this, is that you need a special tool or the toyota software to update the ECU with the new sensors. I wish when these were mandated, they'd have mandated a user friendly way of updating them.
Proprietary-reset TPMS is a real headache. I live with the TPMS light when I have my seasonal tires/rims on, and check pressures, just like in the good old days. Also, I believe the part numbers listed above are for the Gen-II Prius TPMS sensors...
There is a hack to disable the light if you seach the forums. You remove the TPMS ECU and jumper two pins.
Believe it's a different Toyota part # for G2 vs G3, but the Pacific Part # is the same. Just put them on my G3 over the weekend and they work fine. I set the pressures originally around 40/38 and the "trigger point" is roughly 8 PSI lower than where set. This was with the tire temps around 70 degrees according to TechStream. In the morning, when the tires were cooler, they lost about 4 psi in each tire. I made sure to check in the morning again, and put them back at 40/38.
Here is the link to dissable the TPMS. http://priuschat.com/forums/gen-iii...fool-tire-pressure-sensors-6.html#post1256464
