mroney

Embrace the technology silverfox. If it's there , why not use it?

Silverfox

I've been Embracing Technology all my life.......

Does'nt mean I have to Agree with all of it .....

@ 300 miles on my new HHR I got the Crap scared out of me with TMPS technology.

60 mph in Seattle, Rush Hour traffic, in the middle lane of 5 lanes of cars wizzing by me at 65/70 mph, and all of a sudden my TMPS warning system goes off !!!!!
Bells and whistles and flashing messages in the middle of all the other regular confusion.

I had just left a Tire Dealer making an update and tire exchange so What the H--L went wrong ?????
Did the dealer screw up ????

All tire pressures now reading -- on the DIC, but all read 32 for the first 15 miles as I drove off from the dealers shop.

Can I get over and find a place to pull off on this busy "Freeway Nut House" to check out what is happening??

What could it possibly be ???
Car seems to be handling OK.
Nobody is trying to flag me down.....

Finally found a spot to safely pull over and get out. Walked around car ...everything looked OK ... Got out my tire gauge and checked all tires ... All OK.
Said a couple "Nasty Words" and got back in the car and drove to Costco in the town where I live.
Turns out that the original dealer moved the wheels around when replacing the tires and the TMPS system needed to be reprogrammed for that change.
Why didn't the alarm go off before I'm down the road 15 miles away ????

So Much for embraced technology .....

Greybeard999

I'm so glad they didn't install this cr@p until after 2007.......

JavaMann

Huh? I haven't had any issues with my TPMS yet, and maybe the function on the newer ones is different (mine's a 2008), but my understanding is that the Computer and DIC really don't care which corner a particular tire is on or if you rotate them. If you rotate them without reprogramming, it will simply display an incorrect location. In other words, for sake of illustration, let's say I have 22 psi in my LF tire, and 32 psi in the rest. I then rotate the tires, putting the 22 psi tire onto the LR corner. The DIC will simply still show the LF as being at 22 psi.

THAT'S what the purpose is of reprogramming when you do a rotation, simply to tell the computer which tire sensor is on which corner. Think of them as Sensor A, B, C, and D. The computer needs to know which sensor is in which location so that it can then show you on the DIC what the pressure is in each tire at a particular location. If before a rotation I have "A" on left front, but then after a rotation it is on the left rear, the computer needs to know that "A" is now on the left rear so it can then tell me on the display what the pressure on the LR tire is.

I hope that makes sense, and if I missed your point, I apologize in advance.

JavaMann

To further my illustration, let's say you put an extra set of wheels on your car that didn't have TPMS, but threw your TPMS enabled tires and wheels (still inflated) in the back. It's my understanding that the computer would not show any TPMS related errors because the tires and wheels were never out of range of the computer, and now are safely tucked inside your car, happily sending messages to your computer, 'I'm sensor A, and I have 22 PSI', 'I'm sensor B and I have 32 PSI'..... Until of course the 8 year old in the back seat starts letting air out of tire B, and you get a warning on the DIC saying now your RF tire is dropping, even though your REAL RF tire is just fine.

mroney

Sorry, Didn't mean to start something. I use it as an indicator not something to panic over. If you have a tire emergency, you know it before the TPMS can tell you.

timehhr2

Not a super fan of TPMS overall but I can see some value despite a less than perfect hardware / software implementation. So when I got new custom wheels & Goodyears for good weather use (I'll use the Firestone factory wheels for winter) I got four more sensors as well. They went in easily & got reprogrammed by the tire place.

So far it works fine. All of the tires, even the factory ones, have nitrogen. I've run that for about three years since my tire store went it for free. It seems to be much better at keeping a steady pressure over long periods from what i've experinced in those years.

speedwagen

That's funny Silverfox...My first (1963) tire pressure warning chime sounded like this
---thump-thump-thump-flap-flap-flap-knock-knock-knock---

bassbase

Wow! Mine just had an slight ding with a tire light and a small "check tire psi" message that didn't flash. The bells and whistles and flashing must be on the '10 and '11's.

db/sb

To us old guys, those are 'bells and whistles'!