Issues with locking car and intermittent TPMS

Your tpms sensor normally will alert when the tire pressure drops signifantly below the pressure that was present when the tpms reset procedure was last performed. Maybe that was with a higher tire pressure? For starters: set the tire pressures, the do the tpms reset procedure, see if that helps. Excerpt from the Owner's Manual:

Was this a dealership, or an independent? Just wondering if he procured/installed the correct Toyota sensor, or? Also, after installing sensor it needs to be initialized. I believe some third party equipment might be able to handle this, but the dealerships would use Toyota's proprietary software "Techstream", hooking up to the On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) port.

Also: general oddities might be due to a failing 12 volt battery. Is it the original? If so, for starters check it's voltage, first thing in the morning, with a digital multimeter. For a more complete assessment an electronic load tester should be used. You can DIY this with something like Solar BA5. Actually, if it's the original battery, I wouldn't bother too much with tests, it's overdue to be changed.

 

I've also had the intermittent TPMS issue several times this past year. No solution yet, just some observations.

My car did this on two separate days last summer with the factory (2012) wheels & TPMS sensors, and one late fall day with my winter set, which has TPMS sensors about two years younger. In all cases, multiple warning events for the day, but all tires had good pressure. I can't just ignore the light, because between two household TPMS cars, I've had three valid warnings in the past six years. Sensor batteries ought not have aged out yet. But alerts on two separate wheel sets is suggestive of some problem in the car, not the wheel sensors.

This issue prompted me to take advantage of a December offer to upgrade my old ScanGauge-II with Linear Logic's new firmware to display individual tire pressures. The car was then mostly parked for the next several months, not returning to frequent service until May. Since then, this intermittent issue has repeated on only one day, a hot one in July. Some testing found that all tires still showed good pressure, but a shutdown-reboot revealed one tire not updating for a while, displaying a blank. After 20-ish minutes when it finally did give a reading, the TPMS warning instantly went dark. I didn't do any more reboots during later TPMS alerts that day, but did notice that same tire wouldn't change displayed pressure when all the others did, under changing ambient temperatures. And as soon as it would change, the light would go out.

This hasn't repeated on any day when additional troubleshooting would have been more convenient. I'll update when I learn more.

As for Mendel's 12V comments, I do still have the factory 12V battery, now 6 years old and topped off sporadically. Relevance of that remains TBD.

 

I'd take it to carmax first, they're prices are expensive because they are obligated to take care things like that.

 

I manage to ignore the light for 4~5 months, every winter with our (TPMS'less) snow tires, lol. The simplest way to deal with a sporadic false alarm, or failing TPMS sensor is to just ignore it, monitor your tire pressures. If ours "age out" while on the car, that's what I'll do, and when getting replacement tires just get regular valves.

This is legal in Canada, in the States maybe not so much?

 

Absent periodic state inspection requirements, this is legal for the car's driver-owner, but not for the tire shop. So Americans who want to do this will just need to bolt / unbolt the wheels to the car's hubs themselves. When the wheels are loose, off the car, the tire shop seems to not have legal notice or responsibility to know whether the wheels to go a TPMS-equipped or TPMS-less vehicle, so can handle the tire work according to the customer's direction.