Most vehicles today use in-tire sensors to monitor for leaks. These in-tire pressure sensors, we are gonna call them TPMS sensors from here on out, have a lifespan shorter than that of our car. So for that reason, you will likely end up replacing them if you keep a car longer than about ten years.
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The good news is that any competent local repair shop can help you, all respectable tire retailers can help you, and if worse comes to worst, you can always head over to the dealer and hand them your wallet in exchange for their services.
We know you are presently staring at a TPMS warning light on your dash, and you want to know right now how much one of these sensors costs, so here's the scoop. To have the sensor replaced in a single tire, the price is usually between $50 and $350. The cost of the sensor itself cost roughly $40 to $200. Let’s dig a little deeper.
If your car shows a low tire pressure icon on the dash display upon starting or when driving, pull to the nearest safe area and check all four tires for proper inflation. This is a safety issue, so you must act if the low tire warning comes on. It is very likely that your TPMS sensors are not defective and that you actually have a tire with low pressure. If that’s the case, drive very slowly until you can inflate your tires to the proper pressure or replace them if damaged.
If your tires are properly inflated and the icon stays on, you may have sensor problems, and you likely need new TPMS sensors. We’re here to help.
Tire pressure monitoring systems do just that. They monitor the tire pressure of all four tires and alert you when one or more tires has low pressure. Vehicles have TPMS because a certain tire on a certain type of vehicle had some serious problems about twenty-five years ago. The failures of the tires on these vehicles caused them to flip and roll down the highway. We don't mean to make light of this. People were dying. The government got involved. One of the things that came out of this fiasco was that legislators decided that cars should tell drivers when they have a flat tire before the car starts doing cartwheels down the highway. A law aptly named the TREAD Act was written, and TPMS monitoring was mandated.
The law the legislators wrote didn’t strictly mandate what technology should be used to monitor tire pressure. Automakers went down two different paths to alert drivers to the low-pressure condition. Some used an indirect measurement system, or sensor, that relies on the vehicle’s ABS sensors to tell you if one tire is low on air and thus rotating at a different rate than the other three. Indirect systems are simple and effective, with no unique or consumable parts, and, of course, are not the ones most automakers adopted. They are out there, but they are not common. The Honda Civic uses this system, just as an example. Not a single owner of a vehicle equipped with an indirect tire pressure monitoring system will have to replace a TPMS sensor because none are used in the system.
The second and more common system, direct TPMS, uses a sensor in each wheel that actually measures the pressure in the tire. It relays that information to a wireless receiver connected to the car’s computer. If the pressure is outside of a setpoint range, the sensor alerts the driver via a warning light or message that a tire has low pressure. Some systems tell drivers the pressure in a dash display and also tell you which tire is going flat. Others just indicate that you have a low tire somewhere on your car and leave you to do the recon to figure out which tire is low.
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Direct TPMS sensors are part of the valve stem assembly, and they have non-serviceable batteries, so the batteries can wear out. The valve stem assembly can also suffer damage from flat tire leak stop products and other causes. So, the need to replace sensors in a direct TPMS system because of battery life or damage should be expected.
Tire pressure monitoring systems are relatively easy for mechanics to deal with. If your car is displaying a low tire warning, but all the tires (including the spare) are properly inflated, the chances are you have a defective TPMS sensor.
The mechanic will read the information stored in the vehicle’s computer to see which sensor is reporting the false positive alert. She will then replace that sensor and reprogram it to be accepted by the vehicle. The labor involved includes having a tire mounted and balanced on a rim since that has to occur as part of the work.
Jay Condrick of Boston Mobile Tire, our go-to source for up-to-date tire technology, explained how a sensor is then synched to the car.
The price of a TPMS sensor replaced at a dealership is usually between $125 and $200 per unit. We phoned a local Subaru dealer who told us the price was $171 for a Forester’s sensor and that the cost to replace the sensor and then remount and balance the wheel brings the total cost to about $210.00. A local Ford dealer we spoke to told us the price of the sensor in a Ford F-150 is $182 and that the mounting and balancing bring the price to just over $200.
By contrast, Jay from Boston Mobile Tire told us, “We charge $40 per sensor, which includes installation and programming during a tire-off service, add $50 labor per tire if we’re just doing a “sensor only” service as we still need to break down the tire and rebalance, etc.” Therefore, Jay illustrates that an independent tire service provider charges roughly 50% less to replace a TPMS sensor than the dealers we contacted.
The best time to do a TPMS sensor replacement is when you are buying new tires since the rubber will be coming on and off anyway.
TPMS are required on vehicles sold in the US because of legislation included in the TREAD Act, enacted in . The most common type of TPMS is the direct system, which has sensors that monitor tire pressure in each wheel and communicates with the car's computer, warning the driver if tire pressures fall below what is recommended. Direct TPMS sensors wear out and can be damaged, so if we own our vehicles for more than roughly ten years, we should expect to have to replace one or more of our TPMS sensors. The price to replace the sensor in a single tire is usually between $50 and $350. The cost of the sensor itself ranges from roughly $40 to $200. Any qualified mechanic with a fully equipped shop, a reputable tire retailer, or your dealer can help with a TPMS sensor failure or replacement.
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