Sigh, TPMS...

Just skip the TPMS.

 

i'm not a fan. while i have not had any issues, there are too many horror stories.

 

I find this so puzzling that I'm not sure what you're suggesting:
- Put the winter rim/tires on myself and deal with the light (would I have any alignment/balancing issues since I don't have a lot of tools and certainly none to balance the wheels with, or is it just a matter of putting the tire on the rim, filling it up then swapping the tires?).

So I'll move to an easier one:
- Get the tools and cloneable TPMS myself and then have Goodyear put it in, swap the tire set out, then do the ECU work myself (what tools do I need and what TPMS would I have to get since apparently they change every model year).

I have a 2011 Prius and bought an ATEQ Quickset to acquaint the car with whichever set of tires it's wearing at the time. According to their application chart it's good thru 2013 for the Prius (but all of the applications top out at 2013 on their chart, so it should work on a 2014).
It's about $150 (not cheap) but mine has worked well over a couple of changeovers. h
ttp://

 

Don't the TPMS batteries have a lifetime of maybe 5 years? And the replacement cost is not insignicant? I'll just vote refusenik 'till cost and complexity comes back to earth. If ever...

 

At discount tire, with no coupons, it is only $16 to swap tires. Refuse the TPMS "repair" kit they try to push and the sales pitch how it is unsafe and leaks now, and you are out the door for $64 + tax. If you swap twice a year, is $128 really worth the hassle? If you want to go even more hassle free, a lot of dealerships and tire places will store your summer/winter swap tires for you, for free. Of course the kicker you must come back at the end of season to get your tires! But if you are going there anyways, why not?

 

Now having two household cars with TPMS, I followed css28's route and got the ATEQ Quikset. And because that cannot read the sensors IDs numbers, I also got the ATEQ VT30 rf reader. While this solution is expensive, and not really affordable for a household with a single TPMS car, it is still cheaper over time than what Toyota is offering you. See my reply at Tire Pressure Question.

For a Prius-only solution, a mini-VCI and the cheap (pirate?) version of Techstream would be far less expensive. But I found no indication that the mini-VCI could handle our Subaru, so went the ATEQ route to cover both cars.

The local Les Schwab tire shop offered to do the seasonal reprogramming for $20 per time, but then wouldn't touch the car until its model year was in tool's official database. Never mind that it is probably identical to the previous several model years, they still wouldn't touch it. For my Subaru, they still didn't have it in the database a full year after the model was released. Now that I can do it myself, I haven't checked back to see if they ever got it.

 

FWIW the Quickset downloads the serial no.s of the sensors that are already known by the car. I bought my winter tires mounted from Tire Rack and they provided the new serial numbers so I could enter them into the Quickset through my home computer so I was only out the$150 for the Quickset (plus, of course, the new sensors).

Although it's a low feature TPMS system I believe the investment worth it to catch a leak in progress that I might not have noticed.

 

How much for the new sensors?

Going by TireRack: $212. Plus $150 for the device to configure the sensors. And then the batteries die in the OEM sensors, and you need to replace them for another $212. Oy vey!

 

For some reason, I didn't get the serial numbers with my Tirerack purchase. So buyers should clarify this first, make sure they are included.

Both of our TPMS cars caught leaks during their first six months. The first was slow enough to get home. Without TPMS I would not have noticed it that day, but would have found it completely flat the next morning. The second was much faster, happening between road trip rest stops, and just before the last available tire shop was closing for the evening. The TPMS flagged it in time to manually pump up the tire before it was damaged, and get it repaired before checking into a hotel for the evening.

 

This brings to mind the old saying, '' Not enough sugar for a dime'' to me, dealing with two sets of tires and TPMS. By the time you buy another set of TPMS and get them programmed twice a year--- you are spending some serious change. I replaced my 15'' tires and wheels with 16''---ordered the new TPMS installed in them but ''Discount Tire'' somehow did not install--- and now have the little yellow icon on, on the dash. For several $100, it does not bother me....If I somewhere down the road put the 15'' wheels back on, I will be GTG.

 

Yeah, mounting and balancing is really best left to pros.

The lack of TPMS is no big deal. But it is frustrating: the system is effective, still the implementation by Toyota is poorly thought out, way too expensive. It borders on negligence to design it thus.

 

That's crazy.
I'd take the wheel off the car and bring it in to the tire store. If you don't have another car to use, put one of the summer tires back on for the drive over.

 

I'm lost. Is the tire shop refusing to mount the tires due to no TPMS? That IS crazy.

 

In the U.S., it is normal for tire shops to refuse to put non-TPMS tire-wheel combinations onto TPMS vehicles. Something about 'liability', since TPMS has been mandated here since model year 2008.

Customers can still do it themselves, generally by creating the illusion that the tires-wheels may not be going onto a TPMS vehicle, giving the shop 'plausible deniability'. After all, we do still have plenty of legacy non-TPMS cars still on the road. The shop mounts the tires on the wheels, then the customer takes the mounted sets home to install on the vehicle him/herself, out of the shop's view.

 

This is ridiculous tho. God I hope they don't tighten up like that up here.

 

I agree with Mendel. Skip the TPMS. If you then get an indication on the dash that bothers you, cut a small piece of black electrical tape and cover it and your TPMS problem is solved.

 

I had a lot of TPMS horror stories with a new 2007 Camry. The computer that controls it went out among other things. Everything I had done to it was covered under warranty.