BIGMAC

When running drag radials at pressure below the psi cutoff that "fools" the system into thinking the tires are flat and limiting speed to 55MPH what is the better of the following actions. The car will be trailered to the track so mileage between stop/start cycles will be short.

1. No TPMS sensors installed.
2. TPMS sensors installed but not synced.
3. TPMS installed and synced but but since the mileage will be so little between stop/start cycles the TPMS will not kick in.

Thanks in advance.

BIGMAC

sevinn

TPMS would be a waste of time and money in your situation. If the car is going to be trailered it will have very little run time above the minimum psi anyway.

You only really NEED TPMS when you have runflats in my opinion. The only ill-effect of not having them will be a lack of traction control once the car realizes that they aren't there.

Gearhead Jim

TPMS is mandatory with runflats, because otherwise you might have a low or flat tire and not know it.
TPMS is very useful even with non-runflats, so you can perhaps detect a slow leak before tire damage or heading out into the boonies where help and cellphone service may not be available.

Our 2009 and a friend's 2007 would both allow us to drive faster than 55 on a flat, but kept warning us.

With no sensors or sensors not synched, once the car realizes it's not getting any TPMS info (different years of C6 seem to take different amounts of time to figure it out) then it acts like you have a flat and you can't turn off TC or AH, and the AH becomes very intrusive if you try any hard cornering.

If you install & sync the sensors, it will know immediately when you start the engine, and it will act accordingly.
IIRC, "low" pressure only gave a warning, "flat tire" caused the TC/AH to continually try to save us.

subfloor@centurytrans

Not quite.

While it is certainly true that the car takes a fair bit of time before it even realizes there are no TPMS sensors present, when it finally does all that happens is you get a warning message on the dash and it prevents you from turning off AH. It still however lets you turn off TC and does not act like you have a flat tire at any point. That part only ever happens when you do have TPMS sensors and the tire pressure is really low or at zero.

To the OP - your best option is just to not run any sensors whatsoever. I've been racing this way since 2007 and never had a problem.

KB9GKC

Hello,

I installed two sensors in a pressure vessel (I used gas pipe). I pump up the pressure vessel and set the assembly in the back of the car and program those sensors to satisfy the cars need to see sensors.

Good Luck,

Douglas in Green Bay

Gearhead Jim

Thanks for the correction.

BIGMAC

I forgot to add my car is a 2012 A6 Grand Sport. It seems how the AH/TC system reacts to the TPMS sensors has changed over the model years. I appreciate the replies but they illustrate the difficulty in obtaining a definitive answer. I guess the only way to find out for my car is trial and error.

BIGMAC