TPMS light on, all tires >42 psi

offshorebear

offshorebear

New member
Hello, the TPMS light seems to be stuck on in my 2004 4Runner. I have 42 PSI in 4 wheels, and 50 in the spare.

Can I diagnose this at all on my own? How do I start? I have usb and a bluetooth ODB2, are there any toyota apps that could help? Do I need to take it to a dealer?
 
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One or more of the batteries may have died, but I would think that the light would blink if that were the case. A decent tire shop should be able to check it out for you.
 
1. put them all at the same pressure--see if that fixes it.
2. at 11 yrs old, sensors may be near death or dead. they're supposed to make the light blink when they die, but sometimes it stays on steady.
I work with them all day, speaking from experience
 
your tire pressure is way too high. 32 is the recommended.

offshorebear said:
Hello, the TPMS light seems to be stuck on in my 2004 4Runner. I have 42 PSI in 4 wheels, and 50 in the spare.

Can I diagnose this at all on my own? How do I start? I have usb and a bluetooth ODB2, are there any toyota apps that could help? Do I need to take it to a dealer?
Click to expand...
 
I just had the same problem got the spare tire TPMS replaced and could not get it programed by tire shop so I did the disable and am loving it.
There is a better TPMS it's called a PSI gauge for about 5 dollars.
 
radlynx said:
your tire pressure is way too high. 32 is the recommended.
Click to expand...

Depends on what tires and application he's running.

As for the OP's concern. If you have a cheap TIS scantool (there's thread that talk about buying/installing the Chinese Copy TIS USB cables for under $50) you can see which sensor IDs are bad/not responding, then you'll need a tool that can read the RFID numbers off the sensors (unless you want to break down each tire and read the code off the physical sensor.) Then you'll need the TIS again to program new sensors.

You can bypass the module, it's not hard and it won't hurt anything if replacing TPMS sensors and programming them sounds too costly.
 
Thanks for the help everyone.

I like the TPMS feature, but it sounds like it might be rather costly and not worth fixing. Does any know what troubleshooting and replacement run at a big tire chain? If its more than $200 I will live with the light for a while.
 
offshorebear said:
Thanks for the help everyone.

I like the TPMS feature, but it sounds like it might be rather costly and not worth fixing. Does any know what troubleshooting and replacement run at a big tire chain? If its more than $200 I will live with the light for a while.
Click to expand...

It depends on how many sensors go bad. IF You do need sensors and you want to save some money. Search for something like this:

TPMS Sensor Pacific 4260733021

Pacific is the company that manufacturers our TPMS systems. So you might be able to just find some TPMS sensors that are basically the same as factory (minus Toyota badges) for a more affordable price. What I will warn you is to make sure that the FCC ID (the ID number that will be registered into the TPMS module) is a 7-Digit ID. I've run into this already where places like Tire Rack and/or Big-O, ect. have installed an 8-digit unit by accident (our newer vehicles can use an 8-digit ID or 7-digit ID) and they can't program it to the vehicle because the TPMS will only let them input a 7-Digit long ID string.

You could probably get 2 sensors replaced and programmed for $200, depending on how much the sensors and programming cost is (and again how many you need.)
 
Thanks for the good info. I never would have known about the different ID ranges.

I think I'm just upset that I can't really troubleshoot this myself without special tools. I wonder why it was designed so that an instrument failure could trigger the low pressure alarm. I guess our sensors are just pressure switches instead of analog transmitters? I like cars that give the actual pressure instead of a dummy light. What triggers a blinking TPMS light?

BlackWorksInc said:
It depends on how many sensors go bad. IF You do need sensors and you want to save some money. Search for something like this:

TPMS Sensor Pacific 4260733021

Pacific is the company that manufacturers our TPMS systems. So you might be able to just find some TPMS sensors that are basically the same as factory (minus Toyota badges) for a more affordable price. What I will warn you is to make sure that the FCC ID (the ID number that will be registered into the TPMS module) is a 7-Digit ID. I've run into this already where places like Tire Rack and/or Big-O, ect. have installed an 8-digit unit by accident (our newer vehicles can use an 8-digit ID or 7-digit ID) and they can't program it to the vehicle because the TPMS will only let them input a 7-Digit long ID string.

You could probably get 2 sensors replaced and programmed for $200, depending on how much the sensors and programming cost is (and again how many you need.)
Click to expand...
 
So there's two types of failures that set the TPMS warning light.

The first is tire pressure below the minimum threshold, this results in a solid TPMS Warning light when the ignition is turned on. Simple fix is set your tire pressure above the threshold.

The second is a blinking TPMS light (it will usually go solid after a minute or two of blinking, I imagine not to distract the driver?) which is caused by a communication error in the system; typically it is because a sensor has stopped responding to pings and/or stopped transmitting data.

Some of the newer Toyotas do show individual tire pressure, the main reason it wasn't done is because older TPMS in Toyotas works by Sensor IDs, not Tire Location. i.e. TPMS Sensor #1 is Sensor #1; it can be the RF, LF, RR, LR, or Spare tire; but to the TPMS it is simply Sensor ID 1. This makes rotations easier as you don't have to reprogram the system to what tire is where (for example like GM, which you should do the "GM Tire Dance" to relearn all the tires in their correct location after a rotation.)

Newer Toyota TPMS systems in the last couple years both have TPMS IDs and use the wheel speed sensors to determine tire location.
 
Go to a Costco and ask them to scan the sensors for you real quick. They should walk out with a handheld unit and do a 2 minute walk around on your truck. We use Dill brand sensors, about $45 ea, plus $15 labor to install per wheel. $60 ea bad sensor... They die based on age, so it's reasonable to think they're all about dead. Budget for 5, so you're only in the shop once, not 5 separate times. Really not that big of a deal...
 
So I picked up a cable and TechStream.

Very interesting. All my tires are at a measured 42 PSI, but the TPMS in my right front tire is reporting ~9.5 PSI. If I air it down, it drops through 0 PSI to "N/A"

I'm sure the TPMS needs to be replaced, but I'm curious if I can find a way to rescale the sensor value so that 9.5 PSI = 42. I need to learn more about tech stream.
 
Offshore......the Techstream is pretty cool for DIY type people like most of us on here. I haven't used it in a while but I thought I recall there being a column that showed voltage of each TPMS sensor?? Just curious if the low PSI was also the low voltage one?? I have an 05. About a year ago I had this issue and replaced all of mine.(bought them all online but replaced the one bad one to get the light off.......but new I needed new tires within a few months so I waited til then to swap the rest).

For others......if you have the Techstream you can deflate one tire at a time to figure out where "Sensor #1" is located......so on and so forth til you map out the locations.
 
offshorebear said:
So I picked up a cable and TechStream.

Very interesting. All my tires are at a measured 42 PSI, but the TPMS in my right front tire is reporting ~9.5 PSI. If I air it down, it drops through 0 PSI to "N/A"

I'm sure the TPMS needs to be replaced, but I'm curious if I can find a way to rescale the sensor value so that 9.5 PSI = 42. I need to learn more about tech stream.
Click to expand...

Nope, you can't adjust the sensor; we don't see it to often but every now and then we get one that instead of just dying completely it gives weird readings.
 
slyfox75 said:
For others......if you have the Techstream you can deflate one tire at a time to figure out where "Sensor #1" is located......so on and so forth til you map out the locations.
Click to expand...

Naturally the first thing I did was map out which TPMS were on which tire :)


My 4Runner is 11 years old and I expect things like TPMS to fail in that time. This could be a good time to replace them all. The geeky marine engineer in me wants to get creative with clever problem solving too much :)
 
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