Simple TPMS question
 

Read the threads on this, but am in need of specific advice. Here's what's happened for the past few weeks:

- I start the car, get what I call the "pinball machine" tire pressure warning (the little yellow wheel warning bounces around -- it looks like all four wheels are low).

- after about 30 seconds of driving, it goes away.

- after about 15 minutes, it comes back, but settles longer on one wheel before moving. And sometimes it goes away for about 15 seconds, then comes back.

As far as inflation, all four tires are spot on. I could do nothing - the tires are fine - it's just getting annoying.

So I'm assuming it's EITHER the car battery OR the batteries in the TPMS sensors. (or both....) Thinking of swapping something out. Which would you do first? Sensors or battery?

(interesting detail: this started after I got back from the holidays. The car is my daily driver, but it hadn't been driven in three weeks. Started right up no problem)

I had the same exact thing happen. A few members recommended a few techniques as you probably read but this is what worked for me (YMMV):

-Under inflate all tires to ~25psi. start car, watch light show.
-Turn off car
-Overinflate all tires to 40psi. Start car. I don't remember if the TMPS lights went off immediately or not. Drive for a few days. TMPS lightshow stopped but came on for one tire a few times, then it was consistently off.
-Reduce tire pressure to 38psi. Drive for a few days.
-Reduce tire pressure to normal.

I haven't had the light show for about 6 months after this. I was sure I needed to replace the modules but maybe I'll get a few more months out of them.

Good luck.

Always good to verify the battery condition. That being said I have recently started to get involved with the TPMS on my Lexus. Also looking at various info sites it appears that the TPMS batteries seem to last around 7 +/- years . SO my Lexus is a 2010 and after buying a TPMS tester I found that 2 units were bad and the 3rd had a low battery . My 4th and 5th (spare) tested Good. So it looks like I'll be changing at least 4 of them. My tire dealer wants $100 per wheel and the dealer wants $120 per wheel.
So my net is to have someone with a tester check each wheel just to make sure. By the way I tested my 2012 XKR and they all tested good .

Does anyone know if the monitoring system can be turned off?
I don't need a monitoring system to tell me a tire is under-inflated when I can look around my car before driving it. If I suspect low tire pressure I would check it with a pressure gauge.

Not legally in the U.S.

The TPMS errors are actual detailed quite well in the owners manual and of course throws DTC codes. Do you have them? I'm with Jagtoes. I would check the condition of the car battery first. Also inflate the tires by 5 pounds and see if your problem persists.

You're correct as it is a federal law here. Also for those states that do an inspection if you have the TPMS lit they will not pass it. I suppose that if you have the correct tool you could turn off the system but you'll need to find it.

Mine had suffered through the same thing off and on since I bought it back in January, and also like you, tire pressures were always correct and no codes found by the dealer showing any faults in the system. Chalked it up to car battery issues, but it would also do it when the battery was showing a full charge. I had the individual tpms batteries checked with a reader by my go-to tire shop, and all tested good and sending signal. I finally bit the bullit and had a new tpms module installed and programmed by the dealer. Haven’t had any tire pressure dancing signals for a month now. Fingers crossed that it’s fixed. Also I just did an install of the Cteck tender for good measure...

Yes the TPMS can be turned off, I turned it off in my 2009 because the fault was with the receiver/module not with any of the sensors.

It's not a legal requirement here, so no problem for me.

End the frustration. Replace the TPMS. Your Jaguar XK/XKR is a 2010 and probably produced in 2009. Look at the door panel, it will provide a date of manufacturer. The TPMS has built-in non-replaceable batteries that last 7-9 years.

The life of your sensors are nearing their end of battery life.

Once a TPMS goes bad, the battery is not replaceable and the entire sensor needs to be replaced.

The cost to replace all 4 is about $200. The Jag XK/XKR will read the new TPMS and automatically reset after 5 to 10 minutes of driving.

I went thru the same problem on my 2009 XKR and after many frustrating months of warnings, replacing the 4 sensors fixed the problem immediately.

So I bet others would like to know how you did it.

Back to the OP's original problem, PK4144, did you take any steps to resolve yet?

Thanks, one and all.

Have not done anything yet. Actually inflight back to NYC for a few days, so I'll be curious to see if the symptoms change when I return.

Sparky- yeah, until this car my eyes were also a pretty good pressure gauge-- but with the 20" wheels it's impossible to tell. Not enough sidewall and it's pretty stiff. Honestly, they always look underinflated to me, and you could add 5-6 lbs and they'd look exactly the same.

Shemp, I've heard of and read of that method - but I honestly think I'm gonna skip step one to start. Clearly something "thinks" all the tires are low, so I don't think it matters whether they're a little low, or a lot low. We shall see.

I'm gonna try the over-inflate first, see if I can milk a few more months out of the sensors. My rear tires have about 17K miles on them, so I'm guessing that by summer they'll need replacing - at that time, I'll swap out all the sensors, see what happens.

Just think it's interesting that, unlike many of you, this is my daily driver - never needed a CTEK or anything like that. Bought the car used and I've had it for almost three years and haven't given the battery a thought - but this happened after the longest "rest" the car has had since I owned it, I think.

Yes please explain how to have turned off.

It's a feature of OEM SDD software you select to enable or disable. Possibly engineering mode, I don't recall. I don't know if the clone software has it.

No dealer or reputable indy will do it for you as it is illegal here in the U.S. Can't speak for other countries.

UPDATE:

So it ends up one of my tires was about 4 lbs low. (All the others still good.) Wonky valve stem, I think, as I'd checked about a week earlier.

So I did the overfill on that tire- it helped for a while... but the pinball-machine lights came back.

Overfilled all the tires, and that does indeed seem to have fixed it. So now I'm driving on some over-filled tires-- but no light.

Seems odd that the sensors give false triggers as a battery (either the sensors or the car battery) weakens. Also, this is my first car with these sensors and I guess what's a pain is that I thought of them like an old-school oil light - when that thing went on the car was LOW on oil (or had really low oil pressure). Seems like these are a little too hair-trigger. First time I saw the light go on I assumed I was driving on a flat, or close to it. Got out of the car and wasn't even sure which tire was low.

Now you can slowly lower the air pressure by a couple lbs, then drive around for a few days and lower it again until your back to spec and you should be good to go until the batteries finally fail.

PK4144
Any further updates?
I had my car out for a ride last week without issue. But now, in the last couple of days I have gotten low pressure warnings, first on the RF but then yesterday it moved from RF to LF then to LR. It seems odd that the batteries in all sensors would begin failing at the same time. Car has been on Ctek since replacing battery about 3 years ago.

I had the same problem. The dealer installed an upgrade of the TPMS-software/system; so far so good.

Grtz
Ben

Stop by a tire shop and ask them to read the TPMS battery status. Considering that these batteries are good between 5-10 years they can all fail around the same time. My 2010 Lexus has 1 bad unit which I replaced and the readings on the remaining tires a "battery Low" so they will be going most likely by the end of the year.