Tried asking in Wheels and Tires, but no responses...

I had my new tires put on at the end of last month...all seemed fine...
A few days ago, my rear left tire was showing a little bit low so I stopped and put some air in it. I measured all the tires with my pressure guage (not a digital) and they all read around 29-30. after driving along, my DIC reading shows my rear left tire is a little low, but now my rear right tire is reading high...so i stop again...and blindly trusting that the DIC is more accurate than my cheapo guage, I let out some air from the tire reading high and add some to the low. Down the road again...now my RL tire is reading WAY low and my RR is somewhat normal...Finally, I figure that the sensors probably need to be calibrated and I filled the tires based on my manual gauge...

Now I'm sure none of you followed that ...

Today I went out to calibrate the tires...FL and FR went fine...when I try to do the RR, the horn never beeps. So just on a whim, I skip to the RL and it beeps and registers on the DIC as the RR sensor...

Now that you've all got the background , here's my questions...

1. How do the sensors match up to the car? Is the RL position based on the sensor or based on the car locations? What I'm getting at...on a properly set car if you swap left and right tires wil the DIC be reversed?

2. If the answer to 1 is that they will be reversed, will recalibrating fix it or do the physical tires have to be swapped back?

3. If the tire shop that put on my new tires didn't do the sensor correctly, would it throw an error, show no reading, or show an incorrect reading?

4. Am I just not using a strong enough magnet?

5...Finally...is there anything I can try to do before brining it to the dealer or the tire shop to get looked at?

Thanx!




[Modified by luminary, 7:57 AM 8/23/2002]

 

damn, those are some good questions, especially considering I didn't mark my rims when I had them mount the new tires, mine could just as easily be reversed right now :eek:

Guess we'll find out soon enough :D

 

1. I'm almost positive that sensors are not specific to a particular wheel. When you re-learn the sensors, what you are doing is telling the car which wheel is which. That is why you have to do them in the sequence that appears on the DIC.

2 and 3 don't matter if I'm correct about 1

4. If you are getting the other wheels to re-set, I'd imagine your magnet is fine.

5. Probably not.

Frankly, it sounds like you have one bad sensor. I had two wack out on me, fortunately it was covered under warranty.
Good luck :cheers:

 

Each wheel transmitts a code and a tire pressure. Each monitor has a diffrent random code. The monitors only transmit when they sense movement (10mph) or are activated by a magnet.

When you enter the tire learn procedure you must do it in a specific order, the PCM learns which code coresponds to which wheel, based on which one is activated in which order.

Trust me it's confusing if you do it in the wrong direction :)

Brian

 

Brian's right on. Each sensor has a unique serial number and the relearn proceedure marries that serial number with the tire position.

 

I have a question. How strong of a magnet is required, and where do you buy one????

 

I don't know if you have anybody around you that has one of these but I saw a guy do a reprogram with a magnetic mount CB antenna. They certainly have big strong magnets in the base.

 

I used my old Bose speaker from the back. It worked fine. I knew that these speakers were good for something. :D