TPMS new wheels

I have picked up some 17” wheels to swap out my 16” wheels. The 17’s are the Tacoma sport package wheels which are much nicer looking IMO than the 16” off road ones. See attached photo of wheels I’ll be installing. Will I have any issue programming the TPms sensor?

 

No programming is necessary if you swap TPMS sensors. You do still have the 16-inch wheels?

 

Assuming they have sensors in them.....how old are they? Any shop can "sniff" them to determine battery strength and codes.

If you're moving over your stock sensors to the new wheels.... then no programming needed

 

Yes the 16” are stock Toyota Tacoma rims as are the 17’s. I was hoping to just pull the 16’s off and put the 17’s on in my garage. 17’s have tires and I was told sensors are in tact. What’s the process of swapping the sensors? Here’s the old ones.

 

Your truck is 11 years old, typical life is 7-10 years. Although mine were still working after 14 years. Buy new sensors, that is what I did when I last bought tires. You can get a 4 pack from Amazon for $75-$80. Any tire store will install and program them at no additional charge while mounting tires

 

I agree with what you’re saying. All I’m asking is there a way to put the sensor from my existing tire onto the newer ones without having to remove and remount the tires? I will be getting new tires on the new rims in probably 6 months. Would prefer to just do it 1 time. So in other words make the existing ones last a little while longer by swapping them over and then get new ones when I buy new tires. Is that possible?

 

No, to transfer the sensors from the old wheels to the new wheels you will have to break the bead on both old and new wheels to access the sensor.
You could yourself or pay a shop to train the sensors in the new wheels to your truck.

 

So I’m better off training the new sensors for the time being and when i get new tires in 6 months get new sensors? Is it pretty much guaranteed for the Toyota sensors to be recognized by my truck?

 

Assuming the sensors in the new wheels are still good then you can train them to the vehicle. I think you'll need a $100ish plus tpms tool to train them.

 

Is that about how much new ones cost?

 

I don’t think the OEM sensors are programmable. You’d have to get aftermarket sensors which are cloned with the respectful wheel. I believe you need to program the ECU with the 17-inch sensors.

But, you can swap the sensors yourself. I’ve seen youtube videos where you use some 2X4’s and the weight of the vehicle to break the bead. You then unscrew the valve from the outside and remove the sensor from the inside. I did this once to replace a faulty valve on a friend’s wheel. It didn't have TPMS, but it’sthe same procedure.

 

The sensor is part of your valve stem, this is why you have to break the bead
Plz buy new ones though, and they should come preprogrammed

 

I'm currently running autel sensors that were around $120 for a set of four on Amazon, so far no issues after one year, I'm a mechanic so labor isn't a issue for me.

TPMS do not come ready to just install and drive, either oem tpms ID's have to be programmed to the vehicle or aftermarket tpms are cloned to have the same ID as the old oem sensors. Lots of good threads on this site go into more detail then I want to bother typing on my phone.

 

Crap. Guess I’ll be needing alignment too. Hadn’t thought about that.

 

I have been thinking about getting a TPMS tool and some stuff still isn't clear to me. So, what you are saying is that if I have a set of Denso sensors for example, they need to be programmed to have the same id# as the installed sensors? What if the installed sensors are dead? Numbers stored in the computer?

IOW you can't just read the Denso's numbers as supplied and register them in the truck's computer? Reason that I ask is the TPMS tools I see say they will "activate" and register any sensor, but will only "program" (I assume that means clone) their own house brand sensors. Looking at Autel and Xtool TPMS tools...

 

Ok so TPMS sensors each have a different ID number, lets say they have names though since its easier - John, Bobby, Mike, and Ray. By connecting to the OBD2 port these four names are entered into the TPMS module(computer) in the truck. Said truck knows that it only needs to listen to John, Bobby, Mike, and Ray even though as it is driving past other vehicles it sees pressure readings from Bruce, Susan, Bill, Tom, Martha, Superman, ect, which are sensors on other cars driving around. If you remove the wheels and put on a different set of wheels the truck will still keep listening for John, Bobby, Mike, Ray because that what it is programmed to listen to.

At the dealership new Toyota/Denso sensors get programmed like this - When Bobby dies you can go to Toyota and get a new sensor, this new sensor is not named Bobby, let us say its named Harley, well using the Toyota OBD2 program you can delete Bobby from the TPMS module and type Harley in its place, now your truck is listening for John, Harley, Mike and Ray.

At a tireshop after market sensors are programmed like this - The sensor names are stored in the TPMS module of the vehicle even when the sensors are dead and gone. When I installed my new Autel TPMS I used an Autel TPMS tool that connected to the OBD2 port and was able to view the sensor names the truck was programmed to look for, these names were saved in the Autel scanner and one new Autel TPMS was programmed to say "Hi Im John" another "Hi Im Bobby" another "Hi Im Mike" and lastly "Hi Im Ray". The information in the TPMS module the truck has never changed so its still looking for John, Bobby, Mike, and Ray and since the new sensors are saying that is their names the TPMS module doesnt know that the original sensors are dead and buried and it keeps chunging along listening to the new John, Bobby, Mike, and Ray.
That is why we say that aftermarket sensors get cloned since you copy the existing name and make the new sensor have that same name.
I do not know if a Autel TPMS tool will work on a non Autel TPMS for programming, I imagine most shops are going to sell one brand of sensor and have the tool to program that brand of sensor.

I do want to finish by saying that other vehicle brands do TPMS training differently, When you train Ford sensors, first the TPMS module clears it saved sensor names and you activate each sensor one at a time and the TPMS module remembers those new names. Chevy does something similar with letting air out of the tires one at a time and the TPMS module thinks to itself hey I noticed this TPMS who says its Charlie went from saying 40PSI to 20PSI, I will listen to Charlie from now on. Chrysler does a cool thing where you install the sensors and you just drive the car, I think in under half a mile the TPMS module has the new sensor names, I assume it just keeps listening to the different sensor names it hears and when there are only four names it keeps hearing after half a mile it decides those are TPMS on the vehicle and it remembers their names.

 

That's the problem I am having... for Toyota it seems like you have to reuse the original TPMS sensor ID numbers that are stored in the computer and clone those to the new sensors. So the tools you can buy that say they can only "program" their own brand sensors will not work with a set of new Denso/Toyota Pacific sensors if I understand the advert copy correctly. Which begs the question: are there any TPMS tools that you can buy that WILL work with Denso and other brand sensors for Toyota vehicles? Besides TechStream, of course. What a PITA.

 

I went to discount tire today. They said if the sensors in the wheels I am putting on are still working then they’ll handle it. Also said if they don’t, they’ll take the ones out of my current wheels and put them on the new ones free.

 

I think you do need techstream to program the vehicle TPMS module with the new toyota/denso sensors ID numbers. I know Snap On offers TPMS tools which may be able to do it but I don't know, and honestly techstream is probably cheaper then a snap on TPMS tool.

 

If the OEM TPMS sensor still has battery life, the aftermarket reader can read the OEM sensor serial #. However, if the batter is dead, you need a fancier machine to read the serial #s from the the car computer. This happened to me, my Autel reader can clone OEM sensors but three of them had dead batteries. I had to go to a tire shop to have them read the OEM TPMS sensors stored in the car computer. The tire shop tech took a pic of his computer readout and texted me the pic.