5 tire rotation with 5 TPMS sensors

In a previous post I briefly talked about whether or not the sensors will work correctly with a 5 tire rotation with sensors in all 5 rims.
The good news it works perfectly fine.

Heres what I did.
I took the spare in and had a sensor added while the tire shop had adamantly said it would not work since the Tacomas had no sensor in the spare from the factory and adding a 5th would just confuse the system.
I then finished the rotation with the new sensor in the RR tire and went for a drive (spare was installed at this point).
The TPMS would not read anything but no light on. I did the reset using the button under the dash a couple of times and still nothing, after about 90 miles the low pressure light came on and would not let me reset again.

I removed the spare and tried again with just 4 sensors but still the same, low pressure light was on and would not let me reset. At this point I was thinking the new sensor was possibly bad so returned to the tire shop and after ensuring all sensors were working he cleared the light with his tool and reflashed the computer or whatever it did.

After driving about 5 minutes I had all 4 tires reading correctly. I then went home and installed the spare making sure the sensor was at the very back as far from the other tires as possible in the hopes the truck wouldn’t pick it up and confuse the computer.

I took it for another drive and as usual, when I started the truck there was zero readings but after a few minutes it had all 4 tires reading correctly and ignored the spare.

If something changes I will come back and update this thread but so far so good.

 

are you sure it's actually reading the 4 on the ground and one of them isn't the spare reading?

 

It is reading the four on the ground. The spare has 40 psi and the others around 33 psi. I intentionally inflated them like that to be sure which sensors the truck was reading.

 

You clearly do not know how TPMS works, the vehicle computer is informed what 4 TPMS it needs to listen to and what corner each one has.
There is no reason you cannot add a TPMS to your spare or even have 2 or 3 spares each with a separate TPMS, the vehicle will only listen to the TPMS that it is programmed to.
Let's say instead of serial numbers its people with names, if I tell you to go pick up four people named John, Billy, George, and Scott, then it won't matter that Matthew and Harrold also ask for a ride you weren't told to pick them up, now if George dies I may tell you to forget about picking up George and get Matthew instead.

What I think the tire shop was trying to tell you was that putting a TPMS in the spare will not make it so all 5 tire pressures are displayed. I believe Toyota stopped putting a TPMS in the spare back in 2009.
Everytime you do a tire rotation including your spare you will have to get the 4 TPMS serial numbers updated in the computer, some shops will charge you extra for this.

 

Your truck only has 4 slots for sensor IDs. There is no way for the ECU to communicate with a 5th sensor, let alone one whose ID it doesn’t already know. It is also not capable of “learning” new TPMS sensor IDs.
If you leave a wheel, whose ID is programmed, at home and take a long enough drive you will get the light.
If you want to do a 5 tire and also want the 4 sensors on the road to be the ones displayed, your only option is to reprogram the ECU every rotation (add old spare ID to ECU and remove new spare ID)

 

Get one of these and forget going to the tire shop.

 

Thanks, I just ordered the updated model

 

I replaced mine with Autel MX sensors, including the spare...cloned the existing four and kept the spare blank. When doing a five tire rotation, the tire going to the spare location gets blanked, and the previous spare gets that ID.

EZPZ

 

That is very nicely thought out process

 

Does it only work on Autel sensors or OEM too? The online details are confusing.

 

The Autel reader/programer can read and store both in the TPM computer, but can only program the Autel sensors. For example, my wife's 2010 RAV4 V6 has room for five Toyota (OM) TPM sensors, one which is for the spare tire. So I can use the tool to read each sensor starting with the front or LF sensor, then I continue reading each sensor (the toll shows me which sensor to read next). The last one is the spare (yes, her RAV4 has a sensor in the spare tire). Once I have read each sensor, the next step is to connect the tool to the OBD plug at the drivers side, and then to download the reading into the TPM computer.

However, this Autel tool, at least the one I have, is too expensive for what it does for OM sensors, since it cannot program them like it can for Autel ("Maxi" or something like that) sensors. I bought the most expensive one, thinking that I could program the Toyota sensors, but I kept it because I have 3 Toyota vehicles in my household and was in the middle of shaping winter with summer tires.

 

You aren't able to program the OEM sensors themselves, but you can program any new sensor ID into the vehicle's TPM module with the tool that I have (Autel TS508WF)

I went with the Autel sensors for the flexibility of being able to program either the sensors (or blanking them) or the vehicle...works great on my Tacoma, Sequoia, and the wife's Tahoe.

 

I was able to program Bosch sensors with my Autel TS508. Never have tried to program a Toyota sensor but it should work on any 315MHz or 433MHz sensors.

 

Forgive my ignorance, but why????

 

Because some of us run five matching wheels/tires and like to even out the wear...

 

Exactly.
And also get another 20% life out of a set of 5 tires vs 4 tires and an unused spare.

 

First let me say that I’m a 5 tire guy, so I’m not trying to be argumentative!
I used to use the same reasoning but somewhere around it here it was pointed out that at best it’s a wash since you pay 20% more for the 5th tire each time you buy a new set.
So now my excuse is that I prefer the process. I started out with no jack stands, just a floor jack. It was easier to remove old/replace new on each corner with that set up. It also exercises the spare hoist and ensures the spare is properly inflated

 

this is easier

 

are your finances that tight?

 

Not at all. But why have a spare tire that will likely dry rot with next to no miles on it?