2010 prius- is there a separate warning for TPMS faults than low pressure indicator?

If the light just comes right on and stays, it is telling you about the tire pressure.

If it starts blinking, blinks for a minute, then stays on, it is telling you about a problem in the system.

It's in the owners' manual.

 

One minute of TPMS flashing at startup indicates one or more of your TPMS sensors are not working. The number one cause is a bad sensor battery.

Another test is use of Techstream or other TPMS scanner to look for non functional sensor ids.

In the pic below, note ID2 is not reporting valid data. ID5 is the spare but is not configured because the “Main Tire” parameter is set for 4 tires, not 5.
Note sensor battery status is also read. In this example ID3 was low and about to fail.

When Toyota TPMS sensors are changed they have a unique serial number / ID Code which must be written into the vehicle ecu.

It is possible to clear the TPMS fail code with a scanner but it will return after ~20 minutes of driving.

Some aftermarket LED headlights, Cameras, GPS devices etc can create enough rf interference to block the rf (radio frequency) TPMS sensor signal, sometimes only after 20 minutes or more of continuous driving. Often the front sensors will be blocked more because the TPMS receiver is in the back. Tire shops usually don’t understand this problem and the rf sensor operation often works using their rf test devices.

A low pressure indication will create a steady TPMS light when you start driving unless it drops significantly. In that case it records immediately even if not driving.

ID1-4 can be in any location, front or back, on gen3s. To determine where ID2 is you can monitor the pressures with Techstream and then lower one tire pressure at a time by 10-15 pounds. You then see that change on the scanner and repeat as necessary for each tire. Or you use a specialized TPMS RF wireless scanner and directly read each sensor with the rf scanner next to the tire. This is the method many shops use.


Bonus
Which sensors are on the front?



één en vier zijn heter omdat ze aan de voorkant zitten

 

TPMS light

Pushbutton to the right of the obd2 connector under the dash. With ignition On press until the TPMS light blinks three times. This adjusts the “Initial Threshold of Low Pressure” per sensor. Usually about 75% of current pressures.

It won’t reset a bad sensor.

 

People always want that button to be some kind of a problem reset. It's really a button for teaching the car what pressure to remember you like in your tires.

So, a common story is:

• you have some problem with your TPMS
• you wonder if the SET button is some kind of problem reset
• so you press it, teaching the car that whatever pressure your problem TPMS might be reading right now is the pressure you want
• now you have two problems.

 

Assuming Gen3 is about same as Gen2, you can get the TPMS light to go off (temporarily) just giving fake ID numbers or mistaken ID numbers. The car needs about 20-25 minutes continuous operation to reset computer to snoop out that an TPMS ID number is not giving fresh tire pressure data. Then the TPMS light goes on and will stay on next time you start car. Bottom line is that it can be confusing but it sounds like you either have a bad TPMS, or if its new, a bad TPMS ID number inserted into the car's computer (eg; via Techstream), such that the TPMS is not talking to the car's computer.

 

Ignition On is not Ready. Accessory is one push, Ignition On is two pushes. Ready one push with the brake pedal.

You set tires to the desired cold pressure and then reset the TPMS with the button. The system calculates the lower alarm pressure.

The sensors don’t transmit unless the tire is moving.

Don’t forget this

 

I would recommend you to install Techstream program on your laptop to register TPMS sensors yourself when replacing them.
This will save you much more than $500.

 

It's good to remember that what that button is there for is to tell the car that the pressures currently seen in the tires at that moment are the pressures you want. So if the light is on because of what the pressures are, it will go out, because now you've said "oh, those are the pressures I want".

That's ok as long as you make sure the pressures really are what they should be before you press it. Otherwise, you had one problem before, and now you have two problems.

On the other hand, sometimes the light was on because of something besides the actual pressures—a dead battery in one of the transmitters, for example. In such a case, the light will be back.

 

Take a break from all the rigmarole? You've got a car with tires that are not losing air. Just fugedabout the PITA pressure sensors, bask in the glow of the dashboard warning light?

 

The batteries are sure to conk out eventually, though I would take any prediction how long they're 'supposed' to last with a grain of salt.

My 2010 is 14 years old, and so far I've had one sensor conk out of natural causes, a couple years ago. The second one just went this spring, and that one was possibly crunched in the tire machine at Walmart replacing a tire blown by a rock in Yellowstone, so I don't know how much longer its natural life span could have been.

The ECU going flaky would be another cause, sure, but ECUs really don't go flaky all that much.

 

Our '10's build date was August 2009 (it languished at dealership till November 2010). All TPMS sensors still functional, though about a year back it musta lost track of at least one, lit the light. After a week or two light went out, seems to be ok again. When they do go I'm not losing any sleep, at the least not till the next tire replacement.

 

99% of the time, the fault is a bad sensor. The other 1% is all the times that a new sensor ID wasn't entered into the ecu, the sensor was incorrect, (or the ecu was flaky).

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