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Thread: TPMS got me out of a potentially bad situation

  1. #1
    Senior Member Top_Fuel's Avatar
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    TPMS got me out of a potentially bad situation

    After 10 years of driving cars with tire pressure monitoring, it saved my butt the other day.

    I was driving on a remote stretch of interstate a few days ago. Everything was fine when my TPMS light suddenly turned on. I immediately slowed down to determine if I had a flat tire. The car was handling normally so I figured I didn't have a flat...yet. I keep about 50psi in my tires and the TPMS light in a Mirage comes on at 25-26 PSI. So even it wasn't flat, one of my tires had dropped 20+ PSI!?!

    So why didn't I just pull over on the shoulder and check it out?

    I was out in the middle of nowhere, but there was still too much traffic to do it safely. The visibility was limited because it was early in the morning...and people were driving 75 mph. I'm paranoid about distracted drivers drifting off the road. I'd rather trash a tire than get killed...so I kept going.

    I made it another few miles (sweating bullets) to the next exit and pulled into a small gas station. Luckily they had one of those pay air pumps (whatever happened to free air?).

    I found one of my rear tires with only 23PSI. I aired it back up to 45 (as high as the pump would go). I saw a small screw head in the tire...but with no plug kit I wasn't going to touch it. I made it to my destination just as the TPMS light lit up again.

    I'm pretty sure that without a "heads-up" from that TPMS warning light, I would have kept driving until the car didn't feel right. By that time I may have either damaged the tire or I would have been forced to pull over in a less than ideal situation.

    If you've ever had an Enasave tire in your hands when it's not mounted on a wheel, the sidewall of these things is surprisingly thin. It would be really easy to damage one if it was severely under-inflated at freeway speeds for an extended period. Even though I don't have Enasaves on my car, I'm sure the sidewalls of my current tires probably aren't much better.

    So if you're ignoring a TPMS light in your car, consider getting it fixed. It might save you a tire (or more) some day.


        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 52.2 mpg (US) ... 22.2 km/L ... 4.5 L/100 km ... 62.6 mpg (Imp)


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  3. #2
    Still Plays With Cars Loren's Avatar
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    Grumble, grumble, back in my day... don't need no tire pressure monitor, yadda yadda.

    My TPMS story is a little different, but still good.

    A few years ago, I had a Nissan Versa (SV, with the CVT, yo) as a driver's ed car. The TPMS on that car was HORRIBLE. It would come on for no reason at all at seemingly random times. I kept the tires at 40+ psi not for economy, but to keep the TPMS from coming on. And they still came on sometimes.

    Now, you'd think maybe they would come on when the tires were COLD and at their lowest pressure. (and they would, if you actually had a low tire... like when the weather changes and the temperature gets lower than it's been in a while) And then maybe the light would go out again as the tire warmed up and the pressure normalized with temperature. And sometimes that would happen, too.

    But, more often... you'd start driving, get 15 minutes into your trip, and then out of the blue (usually when you're driving across a 3-mile long bridge) the TPMS light would come on. And then, as you were pondering where the heck you were going to stop to check it (and make yourself 5 minutes late for a lesson in the process), half the time it would go back off. For the first few months, I would go ahead and stop and check the tires, anyway just to be sure. Eventually, I learned that the system was just flaky... and no amount of complaining to Nissan about it helped.

    One day, I did get a legit warning, though. And it was interesting. I had a student driving (new driver, very, very little experience) and I noticed the TPMS light come on. But, I also noticed some text on a multi-function display that I'd never seen before. So, I had her pull over and look. The screen said something like "tire extremely low" or something like that. In other words, that car actually had at least two stages of tire pressure warning! (of course, I never had an owner's manual for that car...) One came on when a tire was "a little low" (or at random), and that was just the light. Apparently, if you had a SEVERELY low tire, you got a different warning. Kinda cool.

    In this case, the tire was flat as fawk. Student was too inexperienced to feel that it was losing air or that anything was wrong. So, in that case, the TPMS helped. She got a lesson in how to change a tire. I got to cancel my next appointment.

    I never bothered putting sensors in the aftermarket wheels on my Mirage. I live on the edge.

    I actually liked the way that the TPMS worked on my wife's 2006 MINI Cooper. No TMPS sensors. It used the ABS wheel speed sensors to detect if there was a difference in the rotation of each wheel. Perhaps not as accurate as a pressure sensor, but adequate to let you know when something has changed. (and they did come on when we got the first cold snap of the winter in the morning... and go off after warming up... they worked like they should)

    Long, long time ago, when I was teaching groups of 3 students at a time (HS driver's ed style), I would sometimes play with my students. I'd let 3-5 psi of air out of one of the tires. Enough that if you were in tune with the car, you could feel that it wasn't quite tracking straight. Then I'd tell them "something is wrong with the car, tell me what you think it is". Nobody ever got it. Mind you, it was a Ford Taurus, not exactly a car known for it's precise driver feedback.

    One more... if you ever drive a car with a Torsen style limited slip differential. The way those work, if you have one drive wheel that has lower pressure than the other, that difference in effective diameter will cause the car to pull to one side (the right, I believe) under acceleration, and pull the other way on deceleration. It feels WEIRD, and you'll totally think your alignment is messed up or something. Rear toe must be off! Did I hit a curb? Nope. Just the tire pressure off in one tire.
    Simplify and add lightness.

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  5. #3
    Top Fuel, Thanks for not being that guy who stops in right in the lane on a freeway and decides the car is completely inoperable! I know yours wasn't flat and you obviously knew that. It's just 90% of the time when I see someone with a flat or low tire, they park their junk half in the lane and half on the shoulder. Drives me crazy.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2014 Mirage SE wussie cvt edition. 1.2 automatic: 37.7 mpg (US) ... 16.0 km/L ... 6.2 L/100 km ... 45.3 mpg (Imp)


  6. #4
    Senior Member Top_Fuel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Loren View Post
    Grumble, grumble, back in my day... don't need no tire pressure monitor, yadda yadda.
    I'll plead guilty to that!

    The screen said something like "tire extremely low" or something like that. In other words, that car actually had at least two stages of tire pressure warning!
    That's pretty cool!

    Quote Originally Posted by Fummins View Post
    ...90% of the time when I see someone with a flat or low tire, they park their junk half in the lane and half on the shoulder.
    That's crazy. People who are pulled all the way over on the highway shoulder still get hit occasionally around here. Having been in a similar situation before, nobody moves over when you're in that situation. People just zip by you at 70mph 3 feet away.


    This is yet another reason why it would be great if you could display the tire pressure in real-time like some manufacturers do.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 52.2 mpg (US) ... 22.2 km/L ... 4.5 L/100 km ... 62.6 mpg (Imp)


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    Hubcap Enthusiast Scratchpaddy's Avatar
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    I really liked that my Cruze would tell you the pressure of each tire instead of a general "something is wrong!" light. But, nobody had ever re-programmed them after rotating the tires, so I had to make a little cheat sheet to say "front right=rear left, front left=front left," etc. More stuff to keep track of. The car also didn't include a spare tire, so you'd be SOL with most flats, anyway.

    I bought a small compressor to keep with the spare tire in my Mirage, in case I have a situation like Top Fuel's far away from a gas station. It also means I don't have to use my bicycle tire pump to keep the tires inflated at home anymore... that always takes a while...

    This is the one I bought. Viair 0073 70P

    Yes, there are cheaper ones, but all the ones I could find had lots of bad reviews reporting failures, and Viair has a good reputation in the off-roading community, among people who regularly adjust their tire pressure for trail conditions. This unit is really tiny. One of the reviewers has a picture showing that the pump is about the same size as his hand. It fits nicely in the spare tire space in the Mirage.

    I can verify that it does not blow the Mirage's cigarette lighter fuse.

  8. #6
    Senior Member Dirk Diggler's Avatar
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    Does it say that in the manual? The TPMS will come on if you hit below 26 psi? Curious.

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    Moderator Eggman's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dirk Diggler View Post
    Does it say that in the manual? The TPMS will come on if you hit below 26 psi? Curious.
    TPMS info can be found in Group 31 of the Service Manual. My Owner's Manual doesn't say much about it.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 49.6 mpg (US) ... 21.1 km/L ... 4.7 L/100 km ... 59.5 mpg (Imp)


  10. #8
    Senior Member DonkeyPal's Avatar
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    I just read this thread to find out what TPMS meant. A sensor is telling me that the abbreviation section of my brain is full.

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Mirage DE 1.2 automatic: 43.0 mpg (US) ... 18.3 km/L ... 5.5 L/100 km ... 51.7 mpg (Imp)


  11. #9
    Senior Member Top_Fuel's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dirk Diggler View Post
    Does it say that in the manual? The TPMS will come on if you hit below 26 psi? Curious.
    It doesn't specifically say that number. The industry standard is that the TPMS warning light will illuminate when one or more tires have a pressure that is 25% below the pressure listed on the Tire Pressure and Loading Label in the driver's door jamb (35 PSI in the Mirage). That means a tire pressure around 26 PSI or below will turn the light on. I have tested it and verified that 25-26 PSI is the magic number to turn the light on in a Mirage. Yeah...I have too much time on my hands.



    Quote Originally Posted by Scratchpaddy View Post
    I really liked that my Cruze would tell you the pressure of each tire instead of a general "something is wrong!" light.
    But, nobody had ever re-programmed them after rotating the tires
    That's crazy. Unless GM has changed the procedure, you can do that with the car's key fob and a cheap TPMS sensor triggering tool. I used to do it all the time myself in my Pontiac.

    I bought a small compressor to keep with the spare tire in my Mirage
    Thanks for the link! I was going to ask if anyone could recommend a good 12 volt compressor. I don't want to get caught in that situation again.


    Quote Originally Posted by DonkeyPal View Post
    I just read this thread to find out what TPMS meant.
    You need to check out the super informative Mirage TPMS Quick Reference

        __________________________________________

        click to view fuel log View my fuel log 2015 Mirage ES 1.2 manual: 52.2 mpg (US) ... 22.2 km/L ... 4.5 L/100 km ... 62.6 mpg (Imp)


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  13. #10
    Where's the leak ma'am? Marklovski's Avatar
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    I kept my TPMS only my Winter tires so I drive around most of the year with the warning light.


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