Was driving today. Tires weren't cold, weather wasn't especially cold either. No tires had been off the car lately. But, suddenly I got the screaming amber warning beneath the gauge cluster: "CHECK TPMS SYSTEM." Cycling through the display to the tire pressures yielded "TPMS System Function Error."

I also got the Message envelope in the corner of the nav display. Sure enough, it had a voice message to play. It said I might be getting the message because I'd swapped the spare tire onto the front passenger side's tire.

That message obviously, and helpfully, points to the origin of the problem. My questions are these:

•Has any of you had this happen to you?

•If the problem is the sensor going bad in the valve stem, is the sensor one of those that's powered by a battery in the stem that eventually wears out?

•If so, does it have a design life where it's unavoidable that they'll eventually fail, so I might as well replace all four? (My car is an '06 with about 157k on the clock.) Or is this failure probably a fluke?

Thanks as always for any knowledge you can offer.

 

I'd recommend taking it to a reputable tire shop that can pinpoint if it's one sensor.
I'd also plan to replace all four when you do tires, due to 15-year-old batteries.

 

Update: Started it up this morning and the amber error warning was gone. Went into the menu and the system displayed as "system function normal," but once inside, the right front tire pressure displayed blank, as two dashes instead of a number.

Started it up a second time, and all was normal. Right front displayed accurately as 33 PSI.

I'm thinking that if this is because of battery failure, the error message will be back as the temperatures continue to plunge, since cold weather depresses battery voltage. Stay tuned.

 

its not a big deal, those batteries die eventually. sometimes they lose connection and come back. figure out which one it is and replace it, its not a big deal. I put new ones in and randomly I may get a TPMS message

 

I had the same thing happen yesterday while driving about a minute later all were reading fine

I’ll probably wait to replace them until i put new tires on

 

Update: a few days later, the system displayed as functioning normally but the right front tire displayed a blank "--" instead of a number. A few minutes later, the amber system warning came back, and it's come back on every subsequent start. Knowing all four batteries are the same age, and being thoroughly OCD, I think I'll just replace all four sensors and be done with it.

I saw there's a great number of brands of sensor to choose from, including $20 Asian cheapies. OEMs are silly expensive, of course. My mechanic tells me he uses and recommends VDO brand "redi" sensors, which he says are nicely programmable.