TPMS Sensor defective by design?

Yes, everyone. But lets keep blaming the vehicle, and not the driver. TPMS is not the reason for crashes, ever! And TPMS will never, ever, prevent an accident without human intervention. "Accidents" happen. Though that is not necessarily the cause of the situation. Are TPMS sensors defective by design? No. The drivers reliance on them is defective, by choice. Accept the responsibility of the light being on or off and make your decisions wisely.

YMMV!

Carry on!

 

The TPMS warning light is an LED soldered to a circuit board. Unscrewing it is not possible.

This is the one I used on my 2006: Denso 550-0103 TPMS Sensor . Price about $32 at Amazon.
Installation from free to maybe $25. If one is gone, the others can't be far behind.

 

You really are new at this driving thing, aren't you ?

It depends on when, where and how it "goes flat".
Sometimes it will fly apart before you notice that it is "flat".
Sometimes the flat tire will flex in such a manner that it throws the car into a side skid.

If you are going 30 or less, none of that is likely to happen.
If you are going 70 or more when it "goes flat", bad things are more likely to happen.

IF.......you have a device to alert you to the situation BEFORE it goes completely flat, the likelyhood of a slow leak resulting in a disaster is almost zero.......if you pay attention to the warning.

 

Unfortunately "he" seems to be losing more and more lately.

But that is a whole different subject.

 

There were many different faults contributing to this issue. Firestone was guilty of just one, for a manufacturing process that left out one important component specified in that tire model's design specifications. Ford was guilty of several faults, including too-low pressure label, selecting a too-small tire model, and suspension design problems. Customers were guilty of several more, including speeding, overloading the vehicle, and not maintaining tire pressure. And Mother Nature was even guilty of one count, hot weather.

Crashes don't happen most of the time, but this result isn't achieved all the time.

 

Still surviving without seatbelt

 

Is that a serious question ?
If so, you have an unusual sense of reality.

YES, a radial tire slowly losing air is a LOT less obvious than a warning light coming on.

 

See my thread of Gen2 experience
TPMS Management with Techstream | PriusChat

It is impossible to turn off the light on Gen2, but unless your state mandates it, you can just live with it.
Now besides the black tape trick, above I figured a way to make a fake reading with a spare TPMS and a binder clip. I then used this fake reading for 2 years to keep my TPMS light off with only 3 tires TPMS actually working.

Finally I broke down and got new TPMS. Mine lasted 10-12 years. You are going to spend on Amazon for OEM Denso about $30 to $35 bucks per TPMS sensor, and a fair price is around $30 per tire install. So you could get lucky, but minimum cost is about $65 per tire. Cheaper than that is a big bargain.

bisco I question 16 years except if you have the passive type based on tire rotations. Somewhere around 2008 was the mandate regulation and my 2006 was one the first with in-tire TPMS units.

 

#1. No the TPMS sensor's are NOT defective by design. They are just battery powered and like with any battery powered thing, the batteries will eventually die.

#2. No shop, is going to put themselves in situation of potential liability they would have by officially disabling the TPMS.

#3. TPMS is here to stay. Yes, we drove vehicles for decades that didn't have the system.
You can dislike the responsibility maintaining the TPMS system in your vehicle creates, but it's basically a safety system.
Yeah, I have a tire guage, and a tire inflator. I feel I keep a pretty good eye on the PSI of my tires. That doesn't mean having TPMS isn't something that could help me, or keep my better informed of my PSI on any given drive, or at any given moment.

#4. It sucks every X number of years, or with an accident, when you have to deal with fixing, replacing, the TPMS system. But that's just life driving a vehicle today.

 

And if you had a more modern Toyota vehicle, you could have a TPMS/TPWS system that a tire shop could not reset. My Rav4 was delivered with 50PSI in all 4 tires. 3k later I put a screw through the tread. I heard it saw it got the tire replaced. (one of two tires matching the tires that came on the car in all of Washington DC) Drove 5 miles and saw the TPWS (W for Warning). Had a high quality pressure gauge. 50-50-50-36. They had filled the new tire to the factory recommendation. Refilled all tires to 36. Tire dealer (big chain) couldn't reset Toyota's TPWS so warning light remained because it had been set to expect the 50 the car is shipped to the dealer with. Back to the dealer. Reset, all is well. Lost two days of a trip to DC with my 8 year old grandson complete with motel bill, etc.

So it is all relative. Be thankful you have the simple kind. 4 new ones will cost half of what it cost me.

 

Yes TPMS is a big pain in the butt...you gotta get the right one for your car, and then figure out how you are going to reset it. My Chrysler/VW resets the codes all by itself which is more fun, but I still managed to get a flat tire and buy a wrong TPMS that had to be pre-programmed, and the tire place was clueless. To buy the programming gizmo was expensive. Looks like FORD and GM have relatively cheap tool you can get. For my Chrylsler I just changed over to preset Denso like the Prius, and then by the time I got home from the shop the car read the new codes and that was all.

Toyota we gotta reset codes with Techstream DIY or some advanced tools. I mean I have become a semi-DIY-expert but holy mackerel.

On the 2009 VW/Chrysler we got self-destructing TPMS which in itself was the cause of the many unsafe highway flats...believe there is class action suit. On those the TPMS corroded away before the battery died, so you really needed to maintain well or replace.