Complete TPMS Disable Guide

For those of you that have damaged TPMS sensors or none at all and want to get rid of the tpms light on the dash, there's a good guide here - but that only "mutes" the light - the TPMS ECU is still active.

Although the TPMS ECU doesn't use that much power, I feel like it's more of a "complete job" if you completely disable the TPMS system. Here's my shot at explaining how to do that:


Here is a stitched together wiring diagram so you can see the complete wiring system for the TPMS


The TPMS ECU is on the left, and the combination meter (gauge cluster) is on the right. What we want to do is cut the power to the TPMS ECU by way of the light green wire from the ignition fuse (IG1 No.2) on the top left of the diagram. What that does is disable the ecu. However, once you do that the TPMS light will always be on in the dash, even though there is no current flowing to it through the Indicator circuit (solid light blue) to the combination meter. Why?

The trick lies in the wiring of the combination meter itself. There is a reverse gate (not sure if that's the correct name) that will turn the TPMS light on when there is NO current, off when there is current. So under normal conditions there is always current running through the circuit keeping the light off. Here is a drawing of that circuit:


When the TPMS ECU interrupts that circuit is when the TPMS light comes on/stays on/blinks. So after we disabled the TPMS ECU we effectively cut that circuit, and the light is constantly on. To turn it off, we need to bypass that solid light blue line and wire it to ground, making this circuit:


That will keep the circuit live and the TPMS light off.

So in summary this 2 things we need to do:




PERSONALLY, I like this better than just doing the bypass and leaving the TPMS active, or removing the LED from the gauge cluster. To me this is a clean and complete way to totally disable the TPMS system, not just mute it.

SO, how do we actually apply this to our car?

 

Well first off let's cut the power to the TPMS ECU:
1. Remove driver side kick panel (it pops off)


2. Remove the footrest (also pops off)



3. Remove the left side kick panel


Here is a view from the side:


The red arrow is what we're after, if we go back to the wiring diagram it's the DA-DC junction connection here:


When we look at the reference in the FSM it leads to that junction being in the J/B No. 1 Panel


Which is located here


It was really hard to locate and I eventually had to start counting connections to find the correct junction. Here is a pic. from the wiring diagram of what the DA and DC junctions should look like:


I found the DA connector by counting a 14 pin next to a 20 pin, which is the red arrow in this picture (shown again). The DC connector is behind it.


So the power runs through the Ignition fuse No.2 (in the diagram) through the engine room wire to this junction and through the instrument panel wire to the TPMS ecu. Once you locate that junction, the wiring diagram says DC 13 is connected to DA 4. This means that the 13th pin on DC is connected to the 4th pin on DA.


This is connector DA, in the section that was pointed to in red (there's only 2 connectors there, this is the left-most one (14 pin)


I cut the 4th pin (top row, 4th from the right) on the DA connector (light green). I was stupid and just cut it, in hindsight I should have traced it back a bit, crimped a male/female lead, and hid it inside the stock wiring so that it looks factory and I would be able to connect it back in the future. Oh well.

This cuts the power to the tpms ecu, step 1 in the picture:

 

So now that the TPMS ECU has no power, the TPMS light will be constantly on (explained above). The next step is to bypass that circuit to ground, turning off your TPMS light. There is a great guide here so I won't go into it in as much detail, but here are some pictures:

If you look at the wiring diagram, the indicator light goes through the IJ1 connector:


Again, go through your wiring diagram and find the IJ1 connector location:



When you first take off the glove compartment there is a connector junction (circled in red) -that is the one you want. In my car it was taped behind the harness and hidden a bit. I actually had a hard time matching this with the wiring diagram - I had to go off the pictures and guide from the Toyota Nation guide.


Anyways, after you find that one look at the top portion, it should look like this:


Sorry for the blurry picture. There is only 2 wires (green, blue) on the top row, and almost a full row on the bottom. Because there's only 2 on the top it's a good way of distinguishing the correct connector from others. What I did is cut it and crimp on a male/female terminal like this:


I did this so I could return to stock wiring in the future. I should have done this with the TPMS power as well.

Once the terminals were on there I did not connect them (that would defeat the purpose). Instead I crimped another terminal onto a wire that went to ground, creating a complete circuit which would keep the TPMS light off.


You can see it here. I also put a 1 amp glass fuse in line for safety since this will be a live wire. I grounded to the bolt seen above



Here is a picture of the connector joined to the ground, with the other on the side. If I connected it to the other, I would get stock wiring back.

Again here is basically what we did:

 

Subbed for future use of this if it acts up............

 

Oh, and a disclaimer: Be careful doing anything related to wiring with your own cars - I'm not responsible if you mess it up. I have a 2006 Tacoma and the wiring diagram I used was part of the FSM for a 2005-2006 .

Make sure you understand anything you are doing, and why you are doing it; don't just blindly follow some pictures a random guy (me) made on the internet. Check the wiring diagrams yourself, I may have messed up and you might catch it or find a better way of doing it.

References:
TPMS Bypass DIY, Toyota Nation Forums http://www.toyotanation.com/forum/showthread.php?t=170576

2005-2006 Tacoma FSM Complete Wiring/Electrical Manual Pages 20, 34-25, 55, 252-254, 262-263, 266, 372

2005-2006 Tacoma FSM Complete Repair Manual Pages TW-6

 

Very nice writeup.

I could see someone modifying this a little bit to put a DPDT switch in the dash so you could turn the TPMS on/off at will. Maybe useful for switching back and forth from summer tires (with sensors) to winter tires (without).

 

+ rep. Nice write-up!

 

Quick (not related) question: I've been looking through the wiring diagrams to find the driver's side version of this:



I keep fining lists of connectors, but not that type of diagram. I haven't gone all the way through the wiring diagrams yet...but if you could point me to where this came from, it would make my search easier!

 

My truck is a 2008 and I cut the Blue wire behind the radio (coming from the red box) and ran a fuse link and had to hook it to a Hot source. I've done this to two 2008's. Did a write up last year - search" Disabled TPMS on my 2008 " for pics

 

Hey JKD,

That's a really good idea about the DPDT switch! If you don't mind tracing wires you could have it do both cut power to tpms ecu as well as complete the ground to the tpms light.

On the topic of tracing wires, this is typically what I do:
Once I find the wiring diagram, below it is typically a list of connectors/junction points/relay blocks. They will list page numbers. You then have to go to the "Relay Location" or "Electrical Routing" pdf to trace down that page number.

In my example, the IJ1 connector was in the tpms wiring section. At the bottom of that PDF was a list of connectors, and told me the IJ1 was on page 55. I then found page 55 and voila!

The problem is that because there are so many wires they split up the diagrams and show only some of the connections on each "diagram of the dash." So the easiest way is to trace it using the original wiring diagram.

Hope it helps!

 

Hey Bama_TRD,
I actually did look through your thread, I looked through a bunch when I was initially searching. I basically do the same thing as you (in terms of muting the tpms light) but cut in a different location of the harness (it seems). That is besides the wiring differences between the 05-06 and 07+ models of course.

 

I have similar method except for the grounding, I instead place it on 12v . Been running for 2 weeks without tpms blinking and here some pictures! kudos to "OP"

 

So I just disabled my TPMS in this manner but with a few tweaks. Instead of cutting the power supply wire (green) I simply removed the wire on the female side connector then tucked it back into the loom. Then instead of cutting the blue wire is just used a scotch lock and ran a wire to ground.

It was a simple job that took all of 15 minutes and would be very easy to put back to stock. It's nice not having to mess with that pointless system, if a tire goes flat on my truck, I'll know it right away. I don't need a stupid light to tell me that.

 

sub'd

 

Thank you Justin!

 

Sub'd

 

sub'd

 

Nice Justin! I should have hit you up for this on mod day!

On the to do list

 

I finally did this mod. I went step for step with Justin's write up and was wondering why it wasn't working. Then I finally read through the whole thread and found out that the 2007+ are wired a little differently.

I ended up switching the ground to 12v, and voila! IT WORKED! My engine light kicked on, but it eventually turned off on my drive to work. So far so good