TPMS

[DaKa]

My Tyre pressure monitor warning light on the dashboard has just come on.

It did this about the same time last year as the weather went cold and then switched off again in the spring when things warmed up again without me doing anything to it.

The father in law believes on his Ford Focus that there is a winter and summer setting (e.g. I guess for different pressures) that you need to reset - is there such a thing on an SC or do the valves finally need replacing? 

[Britprius]

Have you checked the pressures, and set the system to those pressures. If you have it is likely to be a Battery is going in one of the sensors.

In that case you have three choices. Find out which sensor  is not working, and replace it at about £60 plus the cost of having it fitted, and registered in the TPMS ECU. Or you can remove the sensor, and fit a new Battery as in my post in the GS section "TPMS system fault". This will cost about £1-50 plus the cost of fitting only (no registration).

Or just ignore it.

John 

[DaKa]

Thanks John.

I guess that it is time to renew but will check your post about changing the Battery first as I thought this wasn't possible.

Strange that the Battery got some power back in the summer months - but I guess heat could be a factor.

I have a local garage that fits and balances tyres for £10 cash so definitely a nice cheap option.

 

 

[Farqui]

My Tyre pressure monitor warning light on the dashboard has just come on.
It did this about the same time last year as the weather went cold and then switched off again in the spring when things warmed up again without me doing anything to it.
The father in law believes on his Ford Focus that there is a winter and summer setting (e.g. I guess for different pressures) that you need to reset - is there such a thing on an SC or do the valves finally need replacing? 

So you ignored the low pressure warning last year, it went off again in the spring and you didn't have any issues, right?

Did you physically check the tyre pressures last year or after the light recently came on? Surely that's the obvious thing to do? It could just need a few psi adding and you should be checking them regularly for safety anyway.

My GS has a second TPMS button that's intended for a second set of wheels, maybe winters. It's hidden away under the passenger dash if I recall correctly.

[DaKa]

Yes, your summary is right.

I checked the pressures, all ok and presumed that I had to buy some new TPMS, but having just fitted new tyres it pained me to change them, so basically I ignored the warning light over last winter. 

In the spring the light went out, so somehow, the Battery got another bit of life!

Went to start it last weekend and the light was back - so will follow John's advice and order some tagged batteries off eBay and if I don't sell it (someone viewing this weekend) it will be something to fix.

[Britprius]

The tyre valves can be removed, and replaced without actually removing the tyre from the rim. Just pressing the tyre off it's shoulder on the valve side of the rim gives enough room to remove the TPMS valve, and fit a temporary rubber valve. This saves the need for re balancing after the fitting of a new Battery is completed. It also saves the stretching effect on the tyre inner sealing rib possibly leading to slow leeks around the rim this along with possible damage to your precious alloys.

John.

[DaKa]

A very good point indeed.

I've looked for replacement batteries as per the GS post referred to above and it's not entirely clear what tagged soldered batteries are correct without taking one of your existing apart and then, I suppose reasonably, presume they are all the same.

If some kind soul out there has done this and can provide a link to a currently active Ebay or amazon sale of the right batteries that would be great.

 

 

[DaKa]

To save checking the GS link - here are the reported dimensions:

Quote

A CR2450 is 24(.5)mm diameter, and 5.0mm height, its the same for all these button cell type batteries.

Unquote.

[Britprius]

If you search "eBay for Tabbed cr2450 button cells" you will come up with a list of suppliers. Some of these are two cells in parallel, but these can be used by cutting the tabs between the two cells giving you two separate batteries. Cells supplied from China are the cheapest, but take longer to arrive. However whatever country you buy them from they will almost certainly be of Chinese manufacturer.

Some button cell suppliers will fit tabs/tags if asked to do so.

It is by no means essential to use tabbed/tagged batteries just fitting a standard cell the correct way round in the TPMS case and closing it up works perfectly well as it does in your key fob. Soldering does make for a more reliable connection though.

John  

[Britprius]

It may be of interest that more readily available CR 2032 cells will work perfectly well as the voltage is the same. The downside is that they will only last about half the time period "about 4 to 5 years" because of there smaller size and capacity.

John.

[DaKa]

Embarrassingly, I sold my SC with the warning light on, but the new owner soon informed me that simply putting 33 PSI into all wheels the TPMS system reset - so clearly there was some charge left in the TPMS valves as my 'little used' car had simply leaked a little air from one of the wheels - thinking about it, the same probably fixed it after the first occurrence last time! 

In my defence I didn't have the time to visit the local pumps to attend to this before his viewing.

Lesson learned - pump them up first and then worry!

[Britprius]

First Question I asked is. Have you checked the pressures? It's the simple things that fool us.

John