TPMS resurrection

I copied and pasted this here after having replied to a thread that appears to have died nearly three years ago. Here to hoping someone can help me or steer me in the right direction.

I have a 16’ Tacoma, my TPMS started acting up around a year or so ago, at first wouldn’t show any readings and then randomly would work again. Then it completely stopped and I had the notorious tire light looking me in the face 24/7. I had tires installed on my truck today, and to my surprise the light was off, and the display was even showing the pressure in all four tires! I had no clue how this could be but went with it.

However, once home I started doing a chalk test as I was fairly certain the pressure they filled them to was much too high. I eventually settled on 32 PSI which is what I had my last set at and they wore perfectly. In this process I also removed one of the front wheels to inspect my brake pads as I have been getting an old clunking noise when braking (pads are worn out where the pins go through, makes the clunk), but then reinstalled and torqued the lug nuts to 100 ft/lbs.

After doing all that, I again have no pressures indicated and the light is back to staying on once more. I had simply assumed when it stopped working last time that the sensors were faulty, but now I’m not so sure as they worked perfectly, and now nothing again. Do the sensors and or computer have to “see” a certain pressure to even activate? Perhaps since the pressure isn’t “enough” as far as the computer is concerned it cannot connect with them? I would also assume if it has anything to do with me removing the tire that it would simply say that tire was 0 psi like it does when a spare is installed.

At the end of the day I always end upchecking with my tire pressure gauge anyway, but I figure if my truck has the ability to do it (or warn me of a slow leak) why not use it?

 

Just a couple of comments.

Lug nuts only need to have 85 lbft of torque. Technically, 83 lbft. 100 is excessive.

Was the TPMS reset to the new pressure after the tires were at proper pressure?

 

Not sure what made me believe it was 100.

Im fairly certain the tire shop did not reset the TPMS however I suppose they could have. After it stopped working I reset it myself and then drove for 20-30 miles and still nothing.

 

My 2016 took like 100+ miles and a over 3 hours of driving after discount tire programmed the new sensor IDs to the computer. I was about to call them and see when I could stop by and switched to the tire screen and all were reading the pressures I set them to. During the time from programming to the pressures showed up I did not have a tpms warning light. That was a few days ago, still good.

 

I would be hopeful that would work for me as well, but as I said it’s been an ongoing issue for around a year. During that year I have put over 30k miles on the truck, if it was going to work it would have I believe. We just drove to get some blizzards at DQ, so another 40-50 miles and still no luck.

 

I don't yet have enough time on my '21 TRD to understand the current sensors. However, on my '06 TRD when the light came on solid it meant one (or more) tires had lost pressure. When it was flashing (as it now does constantly) it means that the system has lost contact with a sensor. I know that the 14+ year old sensor in the spare is dead which explains the constant flashing. At my last wheel swap the shop tried to program the system to ignore the spare - worked for a while, but then the light came back on in flashing mode. I've learned to ignore it and rely on the old-fashioned method (visual check + use of a pressure gauge).

 

I just like the idea of it warning me if a tire has a slow leak. Last time I got a flat it warmed me it was low and I was able to find a place to park under shelter, one of our famous Texas thunder storms was coming and it didn’t care if I was stranded or not.

 

Apparently I ignored the first paragraph of your post and assumed you just had the tires/sensors replaced.

Same. It's not a replacement for responsible maintenance, just a safety features that can give you a warning before it turns into a safety issue.

 

I’m always as diligent as I can be regarding maintenance. The only time I don’t do services the day I should is if the weather doesn’t allow me to. I have a decent driveway, but no garage.

 

Discount Tire will give you a free check, and a fixed price on a sensor replacement if one is actually bad.

 

You probably need to replace your sensors or at least one of them. Good luck finding which one. They do not need a pressure threshold to report. However, if the hardware used for position sensing in the sensors is malfunctioning you will not get corner pressures reported on the dash. It's these inertial sensing parts that causes the sensors not to report or resolve their corner locations, not the pressure sensing part. Basically, they stay asleep and don't wake up or they don't rectify their position. In either case you won't get corner pressures displayed.

The sensors will always throw the light at the hard coded threshold, which I believe is 25 psig. They will also trigger the light at the threshold that's a set amount below the pressures at the last reset. Just because they don't show up on the corner readout doesn't mean they aren't reading, they likely are and you will still get warning lights. They just aren't located to a specific corner. You can see which is reading what with techstream.

You need techstream to diagnose and if they read pressures properly you can use it to manually program in each sensor's location. Your other option is a new set of sensors, have the ID's programmed, and then go through the full reset procedure.

 

Don't mean to get off topic.. I have a set of brand new TPMS sensors to unload if anyone wants to buy them... but does anyone know what the correct 3rd Gen Taco OEM TPMS sensor part number is?

 

that’s pretty far for ice cream

 

A hand held trigger tool which you point at the valve stem will tell you if the sensor is working. It will display the sensor ID number, the tire pressure, tire temperature and battery health. Any tire shop should have one. Another tool (or possibly the same one) that plugs into the OBD II port under the dash will read the ID numbers that have been programmed into the trucks ECU. If the sensors are all good (and are the correct sensor for the truck) and the correct ID numbers are in the ECU then the system should work.

It's not uncommon for sensors to get broken when mounting new tires.

 

Thank you for the information. I am just still confused as to why it didn’t work for so long, then did, and again now it doesn’t. Just seems odd to me.

 

I had assumed they had gotten damaged when the last shop mounted my tires (around a year ago) because then the system stopped working. But then after it started working yesterday for an hour or so I wasn’t so sure of that theory.

 

We live in the middle of nowhere. There is another town closer but it has a huge drug problem. You can’t go anywhere without someone walking up to your vehicle and either asking for money or trying to rob you. I used to work in that town and would only go to work and then go home, wouldn’t even get gas there, too big a hassle.

 

Discount tire won’t touch my truck because I have wheel spacers and oversized wheels. That’s why I always have to go to independent shops to have tires installed.

 

The sensors are still working on my 2007, but I know they are going bad any day. I've already bought new sensors, @ $20 each, and am getting new tires sometime this week. Will have them install them with the new tires. There is no extra charge to install them with new tires, but if they have to break down tires to install them it will cost another $20ish per tire.

Sensors are USUALLY good for 7-10 years, but even that can vary considerably. With a 5 year old truck and new tires chances are good your sensors will go bad before you wear out the new tires and it is possible at least one is bad now. If you're proactive and replace the sensors before they go bad at around 5-6 years it isn't terribly expensive. If you wait for them to go bad and have to break down tires to replace them then the cost is easily double. Or if you're close to needing new tires just wait. No way I'd just replace just one. If one is bad the others aren't far behind.

 

I usually go through a set of tires a year, sometimes less, sometimes more. The most I have ever got from a set is around 38k miles (roads here suck). Unless I fall into some money that I don’t know what to do with I won’t be replacing the sensors, not that important to me (simply a nuisance). Was only starting this thread to see if anyone could point me in the right direction as far as the sensors threshold and so fourth so I could try to diagnose them.

In my experience, fixing nearly anything unless it is a wiring issue, generally equipment either works or it doesn’t. I can come to terms with the sensors simply being bad, but I just don’t understand why they would not work for so long, then work flawlessly, then stop again just like before. Odd