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TPMS won't automatically learn new sensor ids

Discussion in 'Gen 2 Prius Care, Maintenance and Troubleshooting' started by sas0611, Jun 23, 2020.

  1. sas0611

    sas0611 Member

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    I have (2) 2008 prius(s) - my wife was involved in an accident last week and her prius has brand new tires on it and mine are quite worn. Because of the age of her car and the extent of damage (rear badly crushed from being rear-ended while waiting for light to change), her prius will most likely be totaled. I'm pretty pissed because the car ran great and even now it has no faults codes coming up. The passenger compartment and front clip of car was unscathed. I believe the hybrid battery was not damaged either.

    Anyway, I did a wheel for wheel swap between her car and mine so I could at least make use of her brand new tires on my car. One of her tires was damaged unfortunately but I did take the 3 that were good.

    Since her car and mine are the same i didn't have to mount or unmount any tires. I just juggled the wheels with their associated tires between the cars. She got 3 of my worn tires with my wheels and I got 3 of her brand new tires and her wheels.

    While driving home the TPMS system lit up because it was unhappy. I thought i got a tire that might have had a leak. All four tires pressures tested fine with my guage. When I got home I hooked my computer into the car and found 1 of the three tires was correctly transmitting temperature and psi data while 3 were not. All 4 had registered ids but I put two and two together and assumed that since only one was active the other 3 id's must have not updated to reflect my wifes sensor's id(s). I'm guessing the the one working worked because it was my original wheel and tire. The other 3 that most likely aren't communicating probably are the ones from my wife's car. I cleared the TPMS fault code and try a reinitialize using button under the dash.

    My question is assuming my thinking is correct, will i need to go back and hook my laptop into her car to retrieve the tpms sensor ids before they tow the thing away? I see that I can input ad hoc codes through the software utility provided in my laptop. Is there anyway I can force a RELEARN on the TPMS systems so it forgets the id's stored and automatically just attempts to relearn all 4 of the sensors that are currently on my 4 wheels.

    Thank you in advance.
    I
     
  2. jzchen

    jzchen Newbie!

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    As far as I know you need to get the sensor IDs from somewhere. If plugging your computer to her car is the easiest way for you then do that. There are some TPMS tools that can trigger and read them directly. Then you'd need to input them into your car as you noted.

    moto g(7) power ?
     
  3. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    Yes, that is correct and Techstream can be used to both read and updated the ID codes. Write down (or take a photo) both sets of codes before overwriting them with the codes from the other car. Also, be aware of which wheel was where on your wife's car as each ID relates to a particular wheel.
     
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  4. jzchen

    jzchen Newbie!

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    Thanks. Interesting, but when I get the tires rotated I don't believe the store (America's Tire) does anything but rearrange them. I do adjust the tire pressures usually next morning and use the TPMS reset button. Does the computer know how to rearrange the sensor IDs per new position?

    moto g(7) power ?
     
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  5. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    While some companies use such a self-learning design, Toyota is among the companies that do not.
    It doesn't need to re-learn positions. The car has just one sensor reader, it doesn't matter where on the car any given sensor is mounted.
     
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  6. sas0611

    sas0611 Member

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    They were not able to help me at costco. So yes you Toyota doesn't play well with typical TPMS basic tools. They said their basic TPMS tool gave some error about being unable to write to the system. I carefully studied pictures I took of the TPMS sensors listed on my wife data dump and was able to make a best guess choice. I re-registered the ones that came up as working and added the fourth one in and got lucky. I thought that ID had belonged to one of my worn tires that went on to her car in the swap. It registered and is now reporting PSI and TEMP correctly. Fault code disappeared after it was satisfied.
     
  7. dolj

    dolj Senior Member

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    As explained by fuzzy1, for your situation nothing needs to be done The sensor IDs are not allocated a "position" on the car, they are merely listed in fields notated 1 thru 4. The difference is the OP is swapping wheels with another car, so he also needs to swap the corresponding sensor ID codes. Otherwise, there will be a TPMS light illuminated on the dash anytime the cars are not parked next to each other.
     
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  8. fuzzy1

    fuzzy1 Senior Member

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    I haven't taken a TPMS car to Costco. But I have taken my Prius across the street to Discount Tire, which had no problem programming its TPMS.
     
  9. RobertK

    RobertK Member

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    I had Costco replace my TPMS sensors when I bought new tires. They work just fine. The cost was $45 per tire with no charge for installation since I did it when the tires were replaced.