Someone please confirm... winter tires w/o TPMS ok?

[bcsteeve]

I've found a few threads here and elsewhere, but I"m getting mixed info.

I want to get winters but I don't want to put in TPMS. Don't give me any guff about "if you can afford this car...". I don't want TPMS in my winter tires. I'm not asking if I *should* have them or if your particular country requires them or whatever. What I want to know is if I don't have them, what are the consequences in the cabin? Will the car not run? Will there be an annoying blinking/beeping alert? Will a light come on that I can ignore? Nothing?

Appreciate knowledge/experience over speculation here, please.


Thanks.

 

[ChadFeldheimer]

3 things:

1) The tpms warning light will be on in the instrument cluster.
2) There will also be a banner underneath the toy car in the instrument cluster that says the tpms is malfunctioning and to call Tesla service.
3) On the center console, there will be a red icon to the left of the Tesla T at the top of the screen. When you touch the red icon, a dialogue box will pop up to inform you that the tpms needs service.

I have winter tires with the wrong tpms sensors.

The banner (#2) is the most conspicuous of the three. It would be nice if there were a way to dismiss the banner warning. I assume the indicator light (#1) must stay illuminated by law.

 

[dmd2005]

You will get those annoying warnings everytime you get in the car. If you have multiple sets of wheels and don't want the warning, I know people who have bought some glue, ABS pipe and end caps and drilled a hole through the pipe to attach a valve. Throw in 4 tpms sensors and air up the capsule to trick the monitoring system to think the tpms sensors are in the tires. Just leave the capsule in your trunk/frunk.

 

[bcsteeve]

Thanks for the answers. I think I can live with that.

I may (but probably not) take the time to see if I can electronically spoof the sensors on the cheap. There might be some aftermarket interest in that (although I'll probably get dozens of people saying I'm helping to end humanity)

 

[WentOffGrid]

I know people who have bought some glue, ABS pipe and end caps and drilled a hole through the pipe to attach a valve. .

Not all ABS is pressure rated, using metal pipe is safer

 

[HankLloydRight]

I won't give you any gruff, but I'm just curious why you don't want TPMS in the winter tires?

 

[bcsteeve]

No mystery... it is what it is. I don't want to spend the money. I don't see the value in it.

But one of the most common replies on this forum is, "if you can afford the car..." and that elitist arrogance annoys me.

 

[GaryREM]

In a car with no spare, I would think the TPMS sensor would have value, particularly in winter.

But, your choice...

 

[bcsteeve]

Cars without spares is nothing new. This will be my 4th in a row. Two of my other three had TPMS. None had it for winters. All cars before those had no TPMS, yet somehow we magically survived.

It is a convenience feature that I can happily do without. Especially in winter when variance in pressure is the norm.

In 25 years of driving, incidentally, I've never had a blowout. Have you?

 

[GaryREM]

In 50 years of driving I've never had a blowout. What does that have to do with anything?

I've had many nail punctures, though. The earlier detected, the better IMHO.

Before we had cars, we magically survived...

 

[bcsteeve]

It's a convenience feature. That's all. One I can do without for 3 months of the year. I don't understand why it's so important to you that I have them.

 

[lance]

Don't worry, I ain't here to give you some guff about the TPMS etc. I've been driving over a year without them. Drove across the continent and back with the annoying lights going but car worked fine. The TPMS module did get replaced as, incidentally, it failed in the spring this year and wouldn't allow my car to start at all but that was after nearly 40,000 kms driven without the sensors so I don't think it's due to the sensors that the TPMS failed. I have blown a tired on the Tesla and it was a pain to find a replacement in the Laurentians. Thankfully there's CAA. Being that my S is out of warranty CAA Plus is a better option than the Tesla ranger in terms of towing costs.

 

[GaryREM]

I could care less if you get them.

As I said in my first post, your choice. Really just curious about your rationale.

You're lucky you live somewhere where you have the option.

 

[bcsteeve]

You're lucky you live somewhere where you have the option.

You have the option too... presuming you're referring to regulations and not weather or something else.

Let me pause a second and state that I develop automotive electronics as a job. I'm not a lawyer and I'm not familiar with every regulation in every country... but I say the following with a fair bit of confidence.

In the USA - in general - DOT regulations (or NHTSA, if you prefer) apply to the actions of manufacturers and service providers (mechanics, etc) and not to owners or operators (or aftermarket product manufacturers or suppliers, usually, unless they install - in which case they are service providers). There are certainly exceptions, such as seatbelts, but those aren't directly the regulations but instead laws that in effect broaden the regulations to include operators (ie. it is a DOT violation for Tesla to not provide seatbelts. It is a traffic law violation for you to not use them). For TPMS, The manufacturer has to provide them. Service centers have to supply them. But should you feel the need to drive without them I believe that's entirely fine... you just have to do the dirty yourself. You can't get a tire service center to disable them for you. They can supply you with tires/wheels without TPMS, but they can't install them for you. Actually, that's not quite true... if you removed or disabled the TPMS *prior* to taking the car to the tire store, they can (but will they?) install new tires with standard valves and hand the car back to you with the TPMS warning light on. That's fine. What they can't do is hand the car back to you with the warning light on if it came in with the warning light off. In fact, you run a certain risk thanks to this regulation and its rather silly wording about "make inoperable". Let's say that you bring your car in for a tire rotation and they somehow damage a TPMS sensor and can't get another one for a few days. "no big deal", you say, "I'll bring it back in a few days". Nope... they can't release the vehicle to you until it is fixed. Whether or not they're liable for paying for your alternative transportation... that's probably up to you and small claims (or their sense of fairness), but either way you're without a car for awhile over something trivial.

Incidentally, if someone were to manufacturer the PVC fake-out things discussed above and sell them on eBay... people would scream about how that's illegal. And they'd be wrong. Perfectly legal to make and sell such a device (presuming it doesn't break some other law... ie. you ship them pressurized and get nailed for distributing pipe bombs) and perfectly legal for YOU to install and use it. Even perfectly legal for a tire place to swap your tires with normal valve ones if you brought it in that way.