Tyre Pressure Systems

Have you ever wondered how your vehicle knows if you have a flat tyre?

Most cars now are monitoring lots of different sensors all the time while you are driving your car. One of those systems is your tyres with the TPMS (Tyres Pressure Monitoring System) valves. Previously all cars just had rubber valves in the wheels so you could inflate the tyres, now most cars have TPMS valves which monitor the pressure in your tyres and continuously send data back to the modules and ECU to let you know if any of you tyres are losing pressure so that you can get them checked for a possible puncture before it's too late.

Most of these valves do have a shelf life though and can sometimes go faulty so new ones need to be fitted which can be costly on some models. Once new ones are fitted they are programmed so data can be sent back to the vehicle again. There is 1 sensor in each wheel.

TPMS apart from the safety aspect have saved people money in the long run as they know when a tyre is losing pressure by a light on the dash or individual tyre readings rather than running on a flat tyre which then becomes scrap and a new tyre needed.