On Sat, 21 Dec 2024 07:30:48 -0600, chrisv wrote:

> AFAIK, the most "serious" Winter tires are made by Nokian, based in
> Finland. I had a set of them long ago on my FWD Honda Predule Si, and
> that thing was unstoppable in the snow. Of course, you do pay a price
> in dry-road performance.

I wasn't able to find them when I bought this set but the previous set was
Nokian Hakkapeliittas and they really worked well. Unfortunately they were
on the car that was totaled by a snow plow and I didn't have a spare set
to swap on the wreck.

Nokian used to make studded bicycle tires but all I see now at Schwalbe
and 45Nrth. My winter cycling days are over anyway.

On 12/21/24 8:43 AM, chrisv wrote:
> rbowman wrote:
>
>> chrisv wrote:
>>>
>>> s/TPMS/TPM/
>>>
>>> Can you tell that I recently bought some new tires for my car?
>>
>> Great feature! The wheels my winter tires are mounted on don't have
>> sensors so I learn to live with the little orange icon.
>
> My orange icon is off for now, but I also live with it being on, much
> of the time. I swap tires and wheels myself, Spring and Fall, and
> don't have the tool to move the car to the alternate set of sensors.
> The fscking assholes who made my car thought that it wasn't important
> for the computer to be able to remember two sets of sensors and allow
> switching between them. They must have saved an entire dollar.
> Assholes.

I've never heard of OEMs requiring a special tool for (re)learning
TPMS's, but its apparently a common-enough thing. I've only had to use
some dashboard buttons to push to relearn, but it does look like there's
some cheap 'relearn' tools these days; this example's under $10:

<https://www.walmart.com/ip/Universal-Tire-Pressure-Monitor-Activation-Relearn-Assistant-Car-TPMS-Reset-Tool/7740856280>

Of course, the TPMS sensors themselves aren't that cheap...

> I read somewhere that newer cars are smart enough to just lock onto
> the four sensors that are usually the closest and spinning in unison.
> I don't know if that's universal, though.

I've not seen that solution (yet?). It can be interesting to have 8
sensors active when one paid a tire shop to do the swap and there's the
old set in the trunk & new set on the wheels.

> My daughter's Accord
> doesn't use sensors at all, comparing wheel speeds to determine loss
> of pressure.

A clever approach, although it still needs some degree of calibration
input in order to know what's "too low", etc.

>> I learned to use a pressure gauge a long time ago although I finally went
>> digital. It was hard to get 35.3 psi exactly with the old stick gauges :)
>
> Mine's analog, but it is a good-quality dial gage that holds peak
> pressure. So, unlike a stick gage, you don't need to be good at that
> initial push onto the valve.

These days, the challenge is in remembering to periodically check, as
reliability performance makes it easy to go months between actually
needing a top-up.

-hh

On 12/21/24 1:46 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Sat, 21 Dec 2024 07:43:53 -0600, chrisv wrote:
>
>> I read somewhere that newer cars are smart enough to just lock onto the
>> four sensors that are usually the closest and spinning in unison.
>> I don't know if that's universal, though. My daughter's Accord doesn't
>> use sensors at all, comparing wheel speeds to determine loss of
>> pressure.
>
> For a couple of weeks before I swapped the tires I was getting the low
> pressure alert. The first time was disconcerting since i was out at the
> range which is outside of town. I checked the pressures and one was 29 psi
> so I got out the inflater and brought them all up to 35. Eventually the
> light went off. Then it came on again on a rough road out to a trailhead.
> I did a walk around. Everything looked okay so I ignored it. The next day
> it was off, and then a day later it was on.
>
> I bought the car in 2020 but it was a leftover 2018. Because of covid it
> only has 27,000 miles, less than that on the street tires because of the
> swap so they're OEM. The only thing I can think of is one or more of the
> batteries in the sensors are starting to fail. PITA. I'll check the tread
> and may get new tires in the spring along with a sensor replacement.

It could be a premature battery failure, or it might be a bad/damaged
sensor pickup at the wheel location .. latter can happen from road
debris, and/or off-roading.

If the TPMS system tells you which tire is low, you could do some
troubleshooting by doing a tire rotation to see if the "low" follows the
tire or stays at the same location.

-hh