Quote:
Originally Posted by m4ml
My entire experience goes like this:
Used my buddy's SUV to transport the new-in-box wheels to the tire shop (tires were already at the shop via tirerack.com). I tell the installer that I want new TPMS modules installed (he did use universal modules) so that when I swap the tires I can get the TPMS readings in the car at the track. He asked where my car was and I explained that I didn't bring it, and instead brought my buddy's SUV. He said that he needed the car so that he could scan each of the wheels that were on the car to configure the new modules to be registered with the car properly.
I went back to my buddy's, grabbed my car, drove back to the shop and the installer then took a tool ( like this one) and held it next to each wheel to read the settings (likely a MAC address and private keys or something similar). He explained that each sensor needed to be coded to the car and each tire position on the car had a different "signature". After he scanned each wheel, he said... cool, that's it. They'll be ready soon!
I installed the track set at an autocross event a couple of weeks ago for the first time. There were no errors and the tires properly displayed both pressure and temperature in ID7. The same when changing them back to the street set after the autocross. And the same thing was done at SoW this past weekend without error popups.
I don't know why new OEM sensors would be different in their ability to automatically sync when changed versus the universal sensors (other than the speculation that the above scan/code step wasn't done). One would think the OEM sensors would be the ones that wouldn't need the reset. Now, if the above scan/code steps weren't done, then maybe that is why the error is popping up; because the sensor's "signature" isn't the one the car was expecting at any given wheel. So it says "hey, you changed your wheels, you need to configure them". But if the signature is copied from one wheel to the next, they computer can't tell the difference and therefore is happy to just keep going. This might be something that my installer just "knew to do" because he knew that I'd be swapping back and forth - I told them they were a track set.
In my case there isn't a need to change the type of tire in the settings because both sets are summer tires. One summer set for street and one summer set for track. (unless there is an option for "race", which I don't recall seeing before) |
The universal TPMS sensors could have been programmed to be clones of your existing sensors so they broadcast identical ID information. If you had both sets of wheels next to each other and your car and they had drastically different pressures, it might cycle through in the display showing both. In this case of programmed universal TPMS sensors with the same tires, you don't have do anything for the tire type in the vehicle settings - it should just work.
I have the BMW winter wheel package which comes with OE/vehicle specific sensors. These have their own IDs as they were not cloned from TPMS sensors already on the car. When I switch between the summer and winter wheels, I do change the tire type in the vehicle menu to indicate the car should start identifying new TPMS sensors. On the car, there should be three sensors/receivers so they can be used to triangulate the position for each of the TPMS sensors (FL, FR, RL, RR).
In this case of vehicle specific TPMS sensors broadcasting their own unique IDs, the car should detect a loss of all four TPMS sensors and show an error. I would not expect it to automatically pick up the new sensors. It would also require a change of tire type (and potentially change back to original) to reset the TPMS learned IDs.
I will be switching back to my summer wheels in the next month or so but this time, I'll go for a drive without resetting the TPMS (by changing the tire type in vehicle settings) to see what happens and if DSC becomes more restrictive when the error message is displayed.