I went for a few hour drive up north to a cottage this weekend, about half way there while cruising on the highway the TPMS light starts blinking and the display reads "Check System" with the orange exclamation point on the dash.

I thought maybe a tire is low, though I thought it would say LOW TIRE instead... when I pulled over and checked, all pressures were fine (well some were a bit low, like 30 psi but not something I'd think cause a problem). I thought maybe a passenger hit the switch under the glovebox, but switching that either way didn't make a difference all weekend (I tried both ways just to make sure I didn't forget which position it was supposed to be in).

I filled the tires all to 33 psi and even after driving all the way back and a few stops and starts it just never went away. I even tried re initializing the system by starting the engine and holding the reset button down under the steering wheel but after it says the pressure init message it just goes right back to "check system".

Does anybody have any suggestions for me or am I just boned and one of my tpms sensors just died? They are new sensors in new wheels that have only been mounted since the end of May.

Will Toyota be able to quickly see where the problem is without tearing down all of my wheels if I take it in? I got the sensors from eBay so I don't have any kind of warranty if they are just bad. It's possible that one got damaged when lexus damaged the wheel and had to unmount and remount everything when they replaced the wheel but that happened a couple of months ago and I didn't have any issue with it until now - granted I haven't gone for any drives longer than half hour or so since then.

 

I believe the dealer can scan for faulty sensors and reset them! I just went through a similar ordeal. I had my 2nd set of wheel sensors programmed at the dealer and instead of them programming them as a second set they wiped out the 1st set and programmed them as primary. So I put my factory wheels on and took a rode trip to the beach and the sensors went off I checked pressure it was fine and toggled the switch several times and it never went off. The dealer corrected it hopefully, we'll see when I put my new wheels on in a week or so with the 2nd set of sensors!

 

I tried everything, and gave in and took it to Toyota who are going to charge me $55 for the diagnostic.

I suspect one of the sensors has gone bad, so I will have to pay for tire dismount/mount, new sensor, and reprogramming. I guess sometimes it doesn't pay to eBay otherwise it would have been a warranty issue.

Now I told them to let me know if it was the specific wheel that Lexus rashed and replaced, if it looks physically damaged I will be knocking on their doors again for some form of reimbursement.

I guess I'll see what they say about it. Funny thing was that Canadian Tire told me that they now have the equipment to diagnose and program TPMS sensors, and they can even replace them with some new aftermarket ones that are compatible but they wanted to charge me $99 just for diagnosis... I said see ya later because I had the feeling that taking it to the dealership would be cheaper anyway.

 

Guys... my lexus dealership FAILS.

The reason that my check system light was on was because they told me that the right front wheel's sensor's ID was totally different than the one they coded in when I had my wheels and new sensors put on.

What happened with that wheel? Well, that was the wheel that they scraped against a curb and "replaced" for me. So, either they swapped the wheel off another car they had and just changed the tire and didn't give me a brand new wheel, or they busted the sensor when they were mounting/dismounting my tire and then they didn't even bother to code the different sensor into it.

I didn't notice until now because I use the car for short trips only and this is the first time I've been out on a long enough trip to make the sensor go off.

I am not happy at all. I am out the cost of having this diagnosed and fixed, and now I'm wondering what happened to my perfectly good brand new sensor that I had on my old wheel.

They are going to be hearing from me very soon. I asked Toyota to document exactly what they found.

 

See, and many of the members swear by the dealership the bottom line is it is very rare to find people to do their job the right way! You shouldn t be charged at all for this!

 

this happened to me as well. it happened to me after i changed to aftermarket wheels. took my sensors to an off duty tech with access to the toyota laptop. one sensor "lost" it's code, according to what was displayed. after the tech reprogrammed all four, it has been fine. the tech did the programming in front of me, so i actually saw that one sensor was incorrect. must have been a fluke.

 

if you have a Discount Tire local to you they will sync them up for free and yes they can do this now. I tried it from all the rumors and it worked perfect. So those that get charged for this no longer have to see your Lexus or Toyota dealer. Mine always did my for free but I was curious to see if Discount could program them to the car.

Hope it all works out for you

 

As far as I know discount tire doesn't have any operations in Canada, so I'm out of luck there. I have to say, Toyota has never returned my car in worse shape than it came to them in which is more than I can say for the Lexus dealership.

I wrote a long letter to the service manager of the Lexus dealership and will await a response. At this point I don't know if I'd even go back there if they offered me free services to make up for this latest mess. If I don't get some kind of sincere and satisfactory response I will take up my whole case with the owner because they should know that what's going on over there is definitely going to come around and bite them in the rear someday. You expect superior levels of service from a luxury car dealership in exchange for the superior shop rates that they demand. I haven't given that dealership a red cent yet, thankfully, but I would expect the same level of service for warranty work as I would get for paid out of my pocket work.

I'm still angry that this made me waste hours of my time, and my money, as a result of their sketchy service. Hopefully they treat vehicles bought brand new from them better than they treat my car.

 

It just occurred to me... I drove for months without a TPMS sensor registered in one of my wheels without the car complaining one bit. It didn't complain at all until I had been driving for quite a long distance straight without stopping. Clearly during my day to day driving, the TPMS system does jack all for me if it won't even warn about low tire pressure until I'm on the road without stopping for something like 100 km.

Is there any way to change this behavior, is it a setting that Lexus can modify? It seems ridiculous... I always thought that when it checks when starting the car, it looks at the pressure. Apparently it doesn't even check to see if you have sensors in all of the wheels at that time.

It's also annoying that although it was perfectly happy going months without complaining, after I did make that trip and it checked and realized something was wrong it was impossible for me to clear that error as it doesn't show up on OBD2.

 

Yep the TPMS in our cars sucks all the way around I doesn t tell you what tire is low, or if the system has a fault and you can t disarm it. I wish it had a toggle or a fuse that controlled it I would just turn it off.

 

TPMS really sucks, I use my digital hand held Tire Pressure Gauge to check my tires on a weekly basis and usually before i drive her again after sitting at Terminal parking for 2-3 weeks

 

any TPMS upgrade we can do to give a live reading of each of the tire's PSI?

 

Maybe it's different in the UK but my one warned me - correctly - on start up. I had a nail and it was down to about 25 psi.

 

^ mine too.. The other day I started my car and the warning came on, I check and all 4 tires PSI was down to around 20... I pump them back up to 35psi and the warning was gone.

The other day I hit a huge pothole while driving and the tire ripped. within about 2 to 5 second the warning came on. Pulled over and there it is, the tire was low. Had to put in the spare and drove with the warning stay on. After installed all new tires the warning was off again.

 

It's a mystery then. I have no idea how I was driving the car since August when Lexus killed my wheel and replaced it including a different unregistered sensor without it ever complaining until I was quite a ways into a road trip.

I still have not heard back from the service manager about this -- it seems I'm getting ignored. Jeez... I'm not sure how much longer I should wait until I go over his head. I hate to do that to people, but I shouldn't have to chase him down about it a single email should be sufficient.

I do recall testing the TPMS system after I bought the car by purposefully letting a lot of air out of one of the wheels and then starting the car and being warned right away about it. After correcting the pressure, the light went out -- I'm not sure why it would be different when the sensor is "missing" altogether from the wheel as far as the car is concerned. I certainly do not have a second set of wheels with sensors that it could have been peeking at.