I've been looking for a new tin-top (ie. 6+ year old) and ended up looking at C-max's again mostly cause the price of s/h cars is crazy and
the ones I'd prefer seem to be incredibly rare outside of greater London and even then have more miles on them than a trip to the moon and back
All the ones I've been looking at seem to be fitted with TPMS, but as someone who likes to run a second set of all seasons as my winter tyres and
often swaps them front to back at the same time
so whats the best way to deal with this ? / can I just turn off the whole system ?
My wife's 2014 Fiesta has TPMS and we had no end of errors on it due to the age. Seeing as the tyres are fine and I regularly check pressure I thought it was a little too annoying to keep on acknowledging the same error over and over again, I disabled the whole TPMS system using Forscan. No more issues and a happy wife.
"happy wife"?
ford around that time used 2 different methods of tpms
the earlier one being counting via the abs rings to see if one wheel moved at a different speed.
the later version has a transmitter in each tyre, transmitting the pressure and temperature? of each tyre.
there is a procedure for resyncing the sensors, but if you dont care about knowing which corner is at fault the system should learn after a few miles.
I think it may even learn each wheel, but I haven't looked that closely, but it could do this with a receiving antenna adjacent to each hub
note the sensors only send when they detect some movement, which is why their battery can last so well
you can turn off the earlier systems, but the system became mandatory for M1 cars registered after November 1st, 2014.
https://www.schradertpms.com/en-gb/company/press-room/tpms-legislation-overview-eu
[Edited on 21/11/22 by gremlin1234]
If you look at the valve stems on the wheels it will give you a good indication if the car has ABS based tyre monitoring (single piece rubber valve stem) or a TPMS sensor in the wheel (larger dia metal stem with normal valve stem sticking out of it).
quote:
Originally posted by Rallychris
If you look at the valve stems on the wheels it will give you a good indication if the car has ABS based tyre monitoring (single piece rubber valve stem) or a TPMS sensor in the wheel (larger dia metal stem with normal valve stem sticking out of it).
quote:
Originally posted by adithorp
quote:
Originally posted by Rallychris
If you look at the valve stems on the wheels it will give you a good indication if the car has ABS based tyre monitoring (single piece rubber valve stem) or a TPMS sensor in the wheel (larger dia metal stem with normal valve stem sticking out of it).
Except Ford ones have a rubber valve stem on the sensors they use.
No size variation on the ones I've dealt with and they're rubber. They are slightly stiffer as a thin extention of the brass part continues through the centre, to where the sensor screws on. Another give away is how slow they deflate when the valve core is removed, compared to normal valves.
You can also tell by pushing the valve stem towards the tyre, it will stop before touching the wheel due to the sensor assembly touching the inside of
the wheel.
The schrader replacement stems are visually the same as standard rubber valves, they should be replaced with new tyres but alot of places don't
keep them so don't replace them.
There are manual ways of programming new (genuine) sensors on fords (method varies according to model/key/keyless), that require you set a programming
mode then inflate/deflate tyres to trigger an output which requires no special tools but is fiddly, or you can get a cheap trigger tool from ebay
which will do the sensor triggering instead and allow you to program sensors with less hassle.
The universal/clone sensors require a special tool to program id/type to the sensor before programming to the car, they are generally ok, but i have
had issues with them on certain car makes where the sensor output will drop out and cause the light to come on randomly, they can be a total pain to
diagnose where this is the case.
Dave
thanks all - defiantly given me some ideas on how to deal with it
all going well I picking up a car tomorrow and I'm 99% sure its got sensors in the wheels