Came home this evening and the LR tire on my TSX was flat. I changed the tire and of course it had a screw in it, luckily not in the wheel well, and my dealership fixed the flat in 20 minutes for $12.00. Talk about great service!

When I bought my car my salesman told me that if I ever had a flat tire, I should be sure to turn off VSA when I have the spare tire on as it would throw the sensors off balance. I drove around the parking lot at the dealership, with the spare tire, before realizing that I had to turn VSA off everytime I start the car. Do you all think I did any damage to the sensors. The service tech said not to worry about it, but he kinda blew it off like it wasn't a big deal, so I'm not too convinced. Any thoughts....

 

I doubt you can damage the sensor. The VSA would have noticed the difference in wheel rotation rate and applied the brake to keep it from spinning. If anything, check your brake pad. Other than that, the car should be fine.

 

Walmart does the same thing for $6.00

And your VSA should be fine.

 

That's sweet Ortiz. Do you know if they balance your tire too before mounting? I'll go to Walmart from now.

 

Yeah but at Walmart you have to wait a year before getting serviced.

 

The sensor itself is not affected by the kind of tire you put on - it's output is. The size of the spare will throw the signals the sensor sends to the ECU way out of whack causing the VSA to go crazy. Any sizeable change in tire size would do this.

 

I'm constantly getting nails in my tires (on my truck), I take it to Walmart because it is cheap. No they do not balance it but it usually take about 1/2 hour to get it done.

 

You said it was the Left Rear Tire?.....Yoou should be fine with the VSA. Being that your traction control is for the front wheels. Plus even if you had four wheel tractioon control, the spare tire will not cause any damage to it. You have to remember that most sales people at dealerships know absolutely nothing about the cars that they sell. I have never talked to a sales person that knew more about a car I was pirchasing than me.

 

I think that goes for a lot of us on this forum.

 

Yeah, its amazing how some sales people even sell cars, when the know nothing about them