Just picked up a 2016 Touring 3. Paid $18,150. It has 55k and is a dealer certified vehicle. It's our 2nd prius. Sure has some nice features over our old one. I have a 2nd set of factory wheels from the Gen 3, that I have winter tires on. I used an ATEQ TPMS Quickset Tool to change the TMPS programming each time I swapped. Any chance this will just work on the Gen 4 as is?
Wow, cool! I didn't really expect them to be compatible with the new car! That's just awesome. That was a lot of work getting every thing setup for TPMS to work with both sets of wheels. I set it up 7 years ago. Glad I can still the benefit of that for a bunch more years now.
Oh never thought of that. I'll have to put new winter tires on those wheels this fall. Can the batteries be replaced?
If you have any troubles with the snow tire sensors, before starting down any rabbit holes, check you local regulations regarding TPMS sensors. Say for example if you're putting fresh snow tires on those extra rims: perhaps if you show up with loose rims the tire shop is not obligated to install TPMS sensors. It depends on your mindset too, ie: do you have your mind set on always having TPMS, lol. I went old-school: our winter snow tires on extra rims just have conventional valves. Regulations in Canada don't make TPMS mandatory though.
In theory yes you could replace battery, in Gen2 it is a special CR2032 welded-in style. But you can see on Youtube example it is not pretty to rip apart unit to get to the battery. The TPMS are intended to be replaced as a unit. So you gotta buy a new TPMS (Amazon etc). Also on my other car, the TPMS stem itself is corroding away causing near blow-outs, battery is not my concern on the Chrysler. At some point around 7-8 years it makes sense to get new TPMS. However, Toyota's are pretty robust...3 of 4 of mine lasted 12 years..one failed closer to 9.5 years.
Never seemed to matter to Discount Tires about the TPMS lights and I'm not worried about what the regs say, but I do want the TPMS operational with both sets. It's my wife's daily driver and usually our family road tripper. After watching the videos, I'm not going to bother with hassle of changing batteries. I'll just get new ones, record the numbers, program the ATEC tool and have Discount Tires install them when they put new winter tires on this fall.
Any issues with wheel size? My winter wheels are 15's. The new Prius wheels are 17's. Diameter is only about .5" difference. The width is quite a bit more with the 17's, which is nice, but I wonder about offset or some sort of programing, or some other car sensor issue, etc? Here's a comparison. I think I have the tire sizes correct. .
I'd be inclined to just keep using the sensors till they fail, suspect they'll be good for the duration of a new set of snow tires. Maybe get the TPMS O-ring and valve rebuild kit done. Places like Costco that's about $4 per wheel. Tire radius variation is maybe more explanatory? By my calcs, the theoretical outside radius of the 15" is 12.49", and the 17" are 12.31". The difference 0.18", slightly less than 3/32", which is very trivial. I switch over from our OEM 215/45R17 (2010 CDN Touring model) to 195/65R15 snow tires every year; the difference is not noticeable.
Even if the TPMS sensor battery gets low, say near the end of the new snow tire's life, the valve will continue to function.
Nop. The battery is integral part of the sensor can not be replaced. You have to replace whole TPMS sensor.
Toyota OEM TPMS seem robust, but on my Chrysler minivan the valve stems are rusting out/corroding. So I basically need to replace them before the battery goes bad. One failed (rusted thru) on the highway, but at least the air loss triggered the warning light. I had to abort a trip, put on a spare, to get a new TPMS for $150 and go the next day. Gotta wonder though if the TPMS benefit is worth risk and cost.
