hi all.. I have a 2007 prius that I purchased two months ago. Since I live in new york and it snows here during the winter I was thinking of picking up another set of rims to run dedicated winter tires. I know I have to pick up a set of rims with the TPS installed but from reading the owners manual it states that each individual sensor is programmed into the TPS ecu.. my question would be do I have to have the dealer program in the TPS sensors every time I change seasons?? or can the ECU hold more then 4 sensors thanks in advance
Unfortunately you would be stuck going back to the dealer to have the sensors reprogrammed at the change of seasons. The Prius doesn't have the ability to look for more than four sensors. Personally I just mounted my snow tires on a set of wheels without sensors and just let the light stay on all winter, checking the pressure myself as needed.
I've had my Prius since mid February. Knowing I would get another set of wheels for the summer, I recently picked up a new set of Scion TC wheels with Nexen N3000's mounted on them. They are a Toyota product and I've had no issue with the sensors to speak of. Once on a cold night the tire inflation light came on but was gone the next day. I also have put snow tires on my stock rims for when it gets colder. Another bonus or side effect, is that with the low profile 17"s I do get reduced gas mileage but the improved handling and lack of bounciness more than make up for it. Plus it looks pretty clean.
thank you to all that replied. So it is like I thought I would have to live with the light on during the winter. That is no big deal since I do check the pressures twice a month. I gather a cheep set of alloys would work in this application.. I am not looking for anything fancy since I am primary using this car as a commuter car back and forth to work. Does anyone have any suggestions to which 15 inch rims would work?
I found that tirerack.com has a pretty good feature. If you go to their page and click on Products -> Wheels -> shop by vehicle, put in the year/model of your car. You can select the wheels that fit, and they also show you the image with the wheels on the car. Pretty neat!
