After driving on the interstate for about an hour this morning, my TPMS light started flashing. After 30 minutes or so I pulled over to check my tires. All were at 36 paid. Light is still flashing...any ideas?

Didn't check the spare, did ya???

It will go low, in particular was we start to cool.

also check if you have a nail in a tire. my sister's RAV4 had the same thing, tire pressure was fine, took it to STS Tire where they were rotated last in case they messed something up. they checked and found a nail in one tire.

If the light is flashing then there is a system problem. How old are your sensors? The batteries have a limited life and once they go the sensors have to be replaced and the TPMS computer needs to be reprogrammed.
An under inflated tire or tires results in a steady light.

This applies to pretty much ever TPMS system out there. If the Light is steady you have a pressure issue that the system is recording/seeing. If it is blinking, there is a fault in the system, usually a miscommunication issue caused by a dead/broken sensor.

Have you had the tires replaced recently? If not, the batteries in the sensors may have died.

Try letting out a few PSI in all 5 tires with the vehicle on, I have seen sensors occasionally get stuck in sleep mode randomly on customers cars from time to time.

So this also happened to me last night on the highway. I checked all the wheels, pressures are good, spare is fine. I pulled the battery just tried to reset. Still flashing. So it's really malfunction of the TPMS system? What's the best way of fixing this? Ignore flashing light (annoying)? Stealership? Any tires company can fix? Or just bypass the TPMS system?

Thanks all.

bypass it man. Cut the wire that gives power to the bulb. Just keep an eye on your tires from now on

Best idea I've heard yet concerning this PITA TPMS crap.

I went to home depot and bought some wire splice and did the bypass by connecting the pink/black wire to the white/black wire from the TPMS module under the glove box. TPMS light no longer flashing and went away.

Now the concern i have is: Will there be any long term consequences of this doing? Any problem with ECU down the road? Im just afraid the light went away for now, but the ECU will somehow interpret this negatively and throw CEL.

Thanks.

no. TPMS is separate from everything. that's why it has it's own light. and I'm pretty sure all the wire splice does is remove power to the bulb

Yes, this is an old thread, but my noob status prevents starting a new thread, and this one is close to my issue.

Driving through a snowy slushy Thanksgiving, the TPMS light started to blink, and continued to the rest of the trip. After, I took it in for an unrelated alignment (already scheduled) and they tested the TPMS, and said all 4 sensors were bad and needed replacement. (It sounded odd to me that ALL 4 would go bad on the same trip, and told them so.) Soon following, the weather cleared enough to run the T4R through the car wash, and the light stopped flashing. Washing the suv fixed it.

For a while anyway. It's doing it again, and another shop reports the same thing, all 4 sensors are bad. Seems to me there is a common denominator to this system, and that is likely the problem. But I'm a bit at a loss of likely places that may be. Any good, affordable ideas, that don't include disabling the light?

New sensors are $30 - 60 each depending on aftermarket or OEM. That is parts alone, you'll also need to factor in the cost of removing and remounting the tires (typically $10-25 each)

The other thing is, it could be the master unit (which would explain why they all four disappear at once) Throwing new sensors at it wouldn't fix that, that unit is $400 iirc


Disabling the sensor takes 5-10 minutes and is reversible. Basically just unplugging or cutting a cable.

Probably worth just replacing them. Sure, they're annoying, but they work. Fact is, if you get a flat while driving, or your spare loses air, it'll let you know before you'd find out otherwise.

Any tire shop can replace them. Should be about $30-45 a piece. It's common for all of the to die around the same time, they've got the same batteries, they were installed at the same time, they're doing the same thing, etc.

I threw a toggle switch on mine and have them turned off as I'm not ready/needing to swap tires anytime soon...Once new tires are needed I'll toggle it back on and be good to go...easy fix and inconspicuous!

Any point where washing the car, with under body wash, could have affected the signal between the sensors and the ecm inside the T4R? I can't figure out how that could have made a difference, but it did, and that's where I think it makes sense to start looking.