Have an older car without TPMS? Want it?
 

Bought one of these for my 98 Prelude...which does not have tpms.
For $50 it will monitor all 4 tires for tire pressure. If the battery in one of them goes low, it's an easy diy for just the cost of the battery.
Solar powered or it has a cord for usb or 12volt power.


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Makes me wonder why the car manufacturers don't make them the same way...on the outside of the tire instead of inside.

That's cool. I'll put it on my trailer tires. Thanks.

I used one I bought off ebay, they have lots of choices there in different styles and shapes. Didn't really sync up the head unit with sensors so I garbage canned it.

YMMV

^^^ I found this one from a member of the Honda Prelude Forum. I haven't installed it yet..I went on his review that it worked perfectly.
The box arrived today and it said the caps are pre-synced to the display on delivery.

For $50, if I don't like it, it's not a big loss.

Maybe (doubtful) it is like a smart phone. Once I have it, I will wonder how I lived without it.

So far I have been driving since 1970 without TPMS, ABS, traction control, backup cameras, keyless entry, seat warmers or air conditioned seats, lane monitoring, blind spot warnings and adaptive cruise control.

My wife's Macan has all those things and some are nice, but I don't need them.

Get off my lawn, I have clouds to yell at.

I bought something similar for my dad’s Jeep and ending up removing it in less than a year. It’s a bit of a hassle if you want to add air. On the other hand, I bought an orange tpms for the 911 and have had it for about 6 years and it worked fantastic. I had a shop enlarge the hole of the valve stem to fit it in.

While we are at it, don’t bother with the cap that changes color green-yellow-red to indicate normal to low pressure. By the time it’s red, the pressure is super low.

I have had tpms on my Fit and my Civic...I like the idea, but hate having to take the vehicle in for a low battery on the sensor.
These are outside the tire (in the caps), so battery replacement is an easy 5 minute job.

With my Prelude, which I don't drive often, I spend lots of time checking tire pressure the 'old fashioned way' Now I can just look at the screen.

because $$$

^^^ How can it be cheaper to build them inside, when they could just add valve caps that do the same?

Until your "caps" get stolen...

Until you try going 120+mph with heavy TPMS caps on your valves which causes a failure (911s with Fuchs have metal brackets to support the valvestems).

Still, for your avg car, that's pretty cool. Both of our cars have per tire TPMS, so you can look at the dash and determine what the pressure is of each tire. I like that a lot. I understand that there are some cars that are more like TPMS idiot lights. You'll get a warning that one or more of the tires is low, but to determine the pressure of individual tires, you have to measure them the old fashioned way.

I've had my boxster since Aug 2014. I'm not aware of the TPMS or batteries ever having been replaced and it's still going < knock, knock, knock on wood >. I'm expecting it at any time.

^^^ The batteries typically last 10 years at a mininum.
This thing is designed for cars that were built before tpms was born....as my Prelude was.

There is a curved wrench provided to fasten them down tight...not easy to get off.

Plus...I can't imagine anyone trying to steal my tire valve caps.SmileWavy

You'd be surprised. Kids will steal all sorts of stuff.

The kids around here are never out in the drive-ways...esp in other homes.

You misinterpreted my post.

It is not cheaper.


It creates an entire industry.

I have assumed the tire rotation somehow provided the electricity to charge the tiny battery in the valve/sender. How else can the valve send information to the central unit, for years and years?

^^^
10 years is the average life age of a tpms battery.

They sell these on Amazon. From what I read on Amazon the TPMS is only activated when the tire is rotating. That’s probably how they can get so many years out of the batteries.

^^^ That is true. The battery is a CR 1632 Lithium and it's part of the valve stem cap.
They are asleep until the car is in motion.
If the battery dies...it's a simple replacement because it's in the valve stem cap.

And yes...I bought mine from the Amazon for $50

I have trouble finding 2 piece chrome valve stems because everything is TPMS now. I still think back to why it was developed and pushed on consumers….because idiots were driving Ford Explorers with flat tires until they flipped or had an accident.

I’m happy having my cars without that crap. I am smart enough to check my tires before getting in my car, every time I’m going to drive. I also regularly check my tire pressures and if the car is feeling funny, I’ll pull over to check my tires.

I’m with Glen, all my cars have no TPMS, traction, stability, camera or backup/lane change sensors. I am happy with my vehicles and don’t need to deal with batteries on dummy sensors.

Get off my lawn!


CTopher

I grew up with no Internet or cell phone. Nobody needs that crap, it's not useful at all. And when I was young, we only had 5 channels (3 VHF, 2 UHF) and we didn't need a clear picture or a bunch of stations or <gasp> streaming! My grandparents had outhouses. Why you'd want to crap in your house is completely beyond me. That's crazy. You know what else is crazy, air conditioning and refrigerators and vaccines, dammit! No body needed any of that in the 1700s and they were just fine.

https://wompampsupport.azureedge.net...F247%2F297.png

I use a similar set up on all my motorcycles

I hadn't thought of that use...makes sense.
I imagine your receiver screen is more compact than this one....which is the size of a car radar detector.

On the other hand, VW just uses the ABS computer algorithms to determine if the effective circumference of any tire is less than the others. It seems to notify you when a tire drops around 6 lbs.

Best
Les

^^^ That sounds like a great idea.
No sensor/batteries to replace.

When I had the first one die on my Fit..I brought it in for replacement. One week later, another one died. I had them do all three then. (should have done all four on the first trip)

I like the idea for a trailer...

After spending about $400 on our Chevy to replace the sensors (yes, $400.) I found a hack and disabled the system on the 4Runner when they also started failing. I can't remember where I found it, might have been on the 4Runner group.

I wondered about the costs.

My wife's 2017 Macan has TPMS of course. The tires are original, and 6 years old now. In a year or so, we will have to replace the tires due to age even though she only has 22,000 miles now so the tread is like new.

Should we just have the sensors replaced when the tires are off "while we are in there"? to save the labor of R&R of the new tires in another couple of years to replace the sensors?

genius if the comms are good if the sensors are that far from the head unit.

I suspect you'll be paying at least double Chevy cost in the Macan if not more.

I'm sure things are different, but as I said before, I've got a 2008 Boxster. WHen I bought it, it was 6 years old, so probably had the original TPMS. I've now had it 8.5 years and as far as I know, the TPMS has not been replaced/serviced, and they are still running.

I'd not perform the replacement proactively.

The first cars I had with TPMS were BMW's. Once I was past my BMW life I realized that other cars had sensors as BMW works off the ABS (I think).
Having sensors is just plain stupid. I had to spend $300 on an Autel to program them after every winter tire change on our Toyotas.
Stupid I say!

i hate the TMPS on my cars/trucks. there is a bad sensor on my 07 duramax that decided to go bad right after replacing the tires, the dash light had been flashing for about a year and a half now. $60 for a new sensor, plus the $25 for the dismount and mount of the tire. don't tow much anymore so the required 65-70 PSI is way more pressure than i need 95% of the time and causes the tires to wear in the centers way prematurely.

got a programmer for my 15 jeep that i was able to reprogram the thing to not monitor the pressure and send the warnings of low PSI. nice cause when out on the trails i will air down to 12 PSI or so. not been able to find anything to disable the duramax system. my buddy's dually that is an 18 does not have them at all from the factory.

If it cost $400. for a Chevy Malibu, I imagine the Macan would be even more. It does make sense though to get it all done at once.

If you search "2018 macan tpms" you get a bunch of hits, and cost per sensor can vary from $30-100 sensor. Most seem to be in the $45-60 range.

I'm sure the dealer will nail you for $1000-1500 unless you're under warranty.

I remember when I had 3 sensors replaced on my Fit that the total cost was $100 for parts and labor. The sensors were listed at $18 each.
It was an independent shop and took less than an hour.

Skimming over the instructions for this thing, I come to a list of cautions.

Good thing I read them...#4 is very important....:)

4. "After the system is installed correctly, the driver does not need to stare at the monitor all the time and feel distracted while driving."

Clearly, you should have your passenger/co-driver monitor it continuously! Duh! :D

^^^
Someone in China got paid well for writing that line. :)

The set-up looks easy for the tire air pressures.
The only thing that is confusing to me is...why do I need a tire air temperature monitor?
It says I need to set a max temp for the tires on the monitor. What??

^^^ No mention of tire air temperature on that thread.
It must be something added recently.