Tire Pressure Warning Light?

[OdinWiski]

A little over a week ago I took over a loaded '06 Sport V8 4x4 from a couple of lesbians who are splitting up. The truck has close to 16k miles on it and is in great condition. My two working dogs, a black shepherd and a malinois can finally enjoy being in their crates inside a vehicle at the same time - they couldn't with my '05 Frontier Crew Cab. I've put a Strona BB and an OEM hood protector on it and although it is very tempting to put some 265/70/17 TG on it and have a lift done sometime down the road, I've decided to let the sucky stock Dunlop run their courses first.

The tire pressure warning light has been on since I got it. I checked all four tires and I'm keeping them at 38psi for slightly better mileage. I understand that if the spare is not properly inflated, the warning light will come on as well. Today I finally got around to checking the pressure on the spare and it is fine. I'm running 40psi on it.

So the question is - have any you experienced something like this? Do the tire pressure sensors themselves go bad, with this low mileage? These chicks had never changed out the stock tires so there's no issue of failing to reprogram the sensors after installing new rubbers. The light is just annoying - the tire pressures are fine and the handling of the vehicle is absolutely 100%. I know this should be covered by the 3/36k basic warranty, but I just haven't gotten around bringing it in to the Stealer to have it checked.

Any possible explanations?

Thanks!

 

[toto]

The light will stay on if one of the five tires is below 27 PSI or if there is a problem communicating with one of the five sensors.

The batteries are supposed to be good for 5 years, so that shouldn't be it. Since you don't know the history, you can't rule out a damaged sensor. Maybe a tire had to be dismounted for a repair and the guy messed up the sensor.

The tire pressure monitor system (TPMS) will store DTC codes to indicate what's wrong. Of course, a Toyota dealer can read them with a test tool. Since they're manufacturer-specific, I don't know if the average generic OBDII reader will pick them up.

The attached PDF explains how to get it to read out a code by blinking the tire light on the dash. In the document, the "DLC3 connector" is Toyota-speak for the OBDII connector, and the Special Service Tool (SST) is just a piece of wire that will short the two pins together.

 

[toto]

... and here are the codes.

 

[toto]

Note in the code list it talks about transmitter ID # 1 - 5. That's not as helpful as it would sound, because the Toyota system doesn't know which transmitter is in which position on the truck. The ID # just correlates to the order in which the ID's were entered in the computer.

If you get an indication that one of the transmitters is malfunctioning, you'll have to get more help from the dealer.

 

[OdinWiski]

The light will stay on if one of the five tires is below 27 PSI or if there is a problem communicating with one of the five sensors.

The batteries are supposed to be good for 5 years, so that shouldn't be it. Since you don't know the history, you can't rule out a damaged sensor. Maybe a tire had to be dismounted for a repair and the guy messed up the sensor.

The tire pressure monitor system (TPMS) will store DTC codes to indicate what's wrong. Of course, a Toyota dealer can read them with a test tool. Since they're manufacturer-specific, I don't know if the average generic OBDII reader will pick them up.

The attached PDF explains how to get it to read out a code by blinking the tire light on the dash. In the document, the "DLC3 connector" is Toyota-speak for the OBDII connector, and the Special Service Tool (SST) is just a piece of wire that will short the two pins together.

Thanks for the reply, buddy. I can rig a wire to short pins (I did that quite a few times to one of my bmw's before), but I do not even have a generic OBDII reader. I suspect that one of the sensors has something wrong - like you said - someone messed it up when dismounting the tire(s) for rotation or repair (I don't see any patches on any of the tires though). I'm not completely sure, but i would think the way it works is if one of the tires is under 27psi, the light would come on and once you properly inflate the tire and restart the vehicle, the light should go off. At least that's how it works on my Frontier. I guess I'll just bring it in to the Stealer once I get around to it. This should be under basic warranty since the truck only has 16k on it.