tire shop broke a TPMS tire pressure monitor sensor during tire change

[theorist]

I brought our brand new Prius straight from the dealer to Town Fair Tire for a tire upgrade. When swapping the tires, they broke one of the tire pressure monitoring sensors.

The tire shop worked to resolve the problem immediately. When they told me of the problem 30 minutes after starting the job, they had already ordered the part to be FedExed. They called back today, 6 days later to say the part has arrived. In the meantime I read where the owners manual said that new sensors must be registered with the car's ECU.

Has anyone experienced a broken sensor yet? Do you think the tire shop will be able to replace and register the sensor or do I need to take it to the dealer? Am I better protected down the line (warranty) taking the car to a dealer to fix the tire shop's damage? I imagine that the Toyota warranty will not cover this. Any advice on getting the dealer to bill the shop directly or getting the shop to pay for the repairs at the dealer. The tire shop is in New Hampshire, 30 miles away. They have branches 10 miles away in Massachusetts.

I hope this was one very stupid mistake and not the start of a trend.

Thanks for any advice.

[galaxee]

the best thing to do when dealing with tire replacement and tpms sensors is to explicitly tell them to be careful of the sensors. if they don't know there are sensors in there, they're probably much less careful than if they know they're there.

you need the scantool to register the sensor's id code with the tpms ecu, so it has to be done at the dealer. the tire shop should be paying for this, for sure. get a quote from the dealer, take it back to the tire shop and get the money before having the work done. that way you've got it covered.

good luck!

[georgel]

Unfortunately this will become a new trend as TPMS sensors are relatively new and aftermarket technicians are not yet fully trained. Compounding this problem, customers want tires as cheaply and as quickly as possible which increases the possibility of dealing with an untrained technician. The good news is you do not have to go back to the dealer as TPMS reset tools are available to the aftermarket for $150-$550 depending on which one you choose. The Toyota factory scan-tool is also available trough CARQUEST Auto parts

[hdrygas]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(theorist @ May 24 2006, 01:23 AM) [snapback]260237[/snapback]</div>

I brought our brand new Prius straight from the dealer to Town Fair Tire for a tire upgrade. When swapping the tires, they broke one of the tire pressure monitoring sensors.

The tire shop worked to resolve the problem immediately. When they told me of the problem 30 minutes after starting the job, they had already ordered the part to be FedExed. They called back today, 6 days later to say the part has arrived. In the meantime I read where the owners manual said that new sensors must be registered with the car's ECU.

Has anyone experienced a broken sensor yet? Do you think the tire shop will be able to replace and register the sensor or do I need to take it to the dealer? Am I better protected down the line (warranty) taking the car to a dealer to fix the tire shop's damage? I imagine that the Toyota warranty will not cover this. Any advice on getting the dealer to bill the shop directly or getting the shop to pay for the repairs at the dealer. The tire shop is in New Hampshire, 30 miles away. They have branches 10 miles away in Massachusetts.

I hope this was one very stupid mistake and not the start of a trend.

Thanks for any advice.
[/b]

The only thing I know is you break it you fix it. It will be a hard lesson for them but a good one in the end. You will profit, the company will profit from the "learning" (I hate that usage) and I am sure the staff will hear about it. Classic Win Win. Can't get much better than that!

[theorist]

Thank you for your advice.

It took a while for the part to arrive. (According to the tire shop and the dealer, they couldn't find the part closer than California.) By the time it arrived, I had read what the owners manual and friends here had to say about registering new TPMS transmitters with the ECU. I was able to forewarn the tireshop that it seemed that only the dealer could register the new transmiter with the ECU. I said that was happy to take the car to the dealer, but I would like the tire shop to arrange to pay the dealership directly. If they wanted to install the sensor - transmiter at the tire shop, I wanted back to back appointments at the tire shop and the dealer. (They are less than a mile apart from each other but over 30 miles from me.) Town Fair Tire set up the appointments and arranged to have the work at the dealer billed directly to Town Fair Tire.

Town Fair Tire was quick installing the new sensor. They carefully recorded all of the codes and information off of both the broken sensor and the new sensor so that the Toyota dealer could unregister the replaced transmiter and register the new one without breaking down the tires. (I was disappointed to see that they torqued each lug nut only once, and only with a torque stick attached to an impact wrench. They stated this is what they always do. I've always torqued lug nuts gradually going through a star pattern 3-6 times. Am I overly cautious or are they a little careless?)

Toyota of Nashua seemed very new to this procedure. They had the car for nearly three hours. At times it wasn't clear that anyone was working on the car. At other times they had 4 techs gathered around the scan tool. In the end they explained that they thought they locked up the ECU by trying to reinitialize (reset) the TPMS by simply pressing the tire pressure reset button under the steering wheel, before registering the new transmitter. (Town Fair Tire and I knew that this wouldn't work but the dealer techs are the experts, right.) After this they couldn't get their scan tool to work with the ECU. They called Toyota's national help line for techs and learned how to reset the ECU, including much of the stored user settings. Then they said they broke down all the tires (even the one that they had the code for?) to read and enter all the codes.

Nearly 3 hours later the service department at Toyota of Nashua had learned how to register TPMS transmiters and registered mine. They didn't rebalance the tires after breaking them down and rebalancing them. I asked the service advisor what the bill to Town Fair Tire would be for this. He said around 3 hours or $240.

I've never been impressed with dealership service departments, but is this what I should expect from most Toyota dealerships? I wasn't paying but I'm impressed they had the nerve to charge to for their on the job training, in what will soon be a fairly common service in new england with snow tires and wheels. Should I look for a good independent shop with Prius expertise, invest in an extended warranty, or just hope that I'm never paying to train dealership service techs how to repair their own cars?

I hear that Toyota has been named in a class action 'right to repair' class action lawsuit for not giving independent repair shops the information they need to make repairs like this. Perhaps Toyota is trying to even the playing field by not giving their dealership service departments this information either?

[hobbit]

As tires are one of the more common aftermarket items, Toyota is
well and truly bound to supply service data for anything concerning
them. See www.nastf.org.
.
_H*

[galaxee]

it all depends on the tech you get. if you get one who's willing to look things up in the service manual beforehand, you're set. it's the ones who expect to spend 5 minutes on the job and then realize it's more than just pressing some reset button, and then get completely lost and reset the entire TPMS ECU that end up doing BS like that.

i've always advised, and will here too, that you find a tech you know and trust, and whose work you know is quality. then stick with him so you know your car is in competent hands. good techs usually pick up a small army of loyal customers simply because they know their stuff and treat people well.

[ggood]

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(galaxee @ Jun 1 2006, 08:57 AM) [snapback]263986[/snapback]</div>

i've always advised, and will here too, that you find a tech you know and trust, and whose work you know is quality. then stick with him so you know your car is in competent hands. good techs usually pick up a small army of loyal customers simply because they know their stuff and treat people well.
[/b]

Galaxee - You have any ideas how to do that? Every Toyota dealer I've dealt with never lets you anywhere near the techs. You always have to deal with a service rep, who inevitably knows less about the car than you do and forgets half of what you tell him or her. I would love to know and go back to the tech who fixed my recent Prius problem, since he found in 1/2 hour what the other dealer failed to find after having the car for a full week. I would have given him a bottle of champagne!

[galaxee]

ggood- if you really liked the tech's work, look up his name on your work order and insist that he be the only one to work on your car. dude seems to know what he's doing since the other guys missed something so obvious.

i wrote up a thing on finding a good dealer/tech a while back, here's the link: http://priuschat.com/Getting-Your-Pr...ed-t16494.html

[jrct9454]

I solved this problem, when installing new Michelin tires on my 2006 [the Goodyear OEMs are too awful to have on the car longer than it took me to order the replacements] - I did without the damned sensors. The original wheels and tires are still intact and sitting in our storage cage, while the replacement Michelins are on new wheels from Tire Rack [$75 apiece, and original in ALL measurements, including width and offset] WITHOUT the sensors. Yeah, the little yellow light comes on...I finally cut a small piece of electrical tape and covered it up permanently.

Our original poster's experiences have reinforced my attitude about this - I've been driving 45 years without a nanny to tell me that the tires need checking, or that one of them needs serious attention. This is completely a product of the idiots who insisted on killing themselves in Explorers with underinflated tires, and the resulting gazillion dollar lawsuits. So now we have another reason to visit the semi-competent dealer and have your time and money wasted while they puzzle over the latest "advances" in electronics.

Anyway, my solution to this potential screwup was to do without the sensors. When I go to sell the car, I'll put the original wheels back on the car, and/or use them and the sensors at the next tire change. Most of the tire people I've dealt with are aware of the sensors and the necessity to be careful - but probably unaware of just how much hassle it is to deal with a busted one.

Incidentally, the Michelins were from Costco, who refused to mount the tires without the sensors - a decision I understand and respect, since they have already had more than their share of lawsuits from selling tires. I just took the tires to the nearest America's Tire outlet, told them what I wanted done, and it was accomplished with no questions, and with perfect balance and smoothness on all four.