Originally Posted by Squerly
As an update to my previous post and the TPMS that I'm using.
There’s a lot of things to be considered when buying a TPMS, and a lot of us don’t know what those things are until after we’ve bought one and gotten a chance to get familiar with it.
In my case, the TPMS came with basically -0- understandable instructions, so setup was difficult. I didn’t buy the “flow through” stems because I had heard too many people say they didn’t work. Whether they do or not work is still unknown to me, but what I do know is, the kit I purchased requires the cap (sending unit) to be removed to add/remove air.
Simple enough, right? Well, not actually. The caps are secured by a locking nut and you need to use a small (provided) tool to loosen it. So, you loosen the nut, spin it all the way back down the stem, remove the cap and then add air. In my case, I had to remove the locking nut completely to gain the needed distance for the air tool to fit securely enough to add the air.
But let’s not forget that this assumes you have already modified the tire’s beauty ring or that you have removed it completely. So suddenly, checking tire pressure becomes a real pain in the keester. Especially on the rear tires as the beauty ring is secured by two large 1 ¼ nuts. You have one of these in your toolbox, don’t you?
Also, and this is of major importance, if you have a TPMS you should be able to just look at the monitor and see what the pressure is on each tire and then add/remove air if necessary. Well, that’s a reasonable assumption, and one that I made as well. But in my case, the monitor displays the tire pressure that was last monitored when the tires were rolling, and not what the tire pressure actually is now.
This is a major shortcoming in my opinion as my “pre-launch” inspection includes knowing what my tire pressure is “before” I leave and not after I’m already on the road. Especially if I have to go through all the above-mentioned steps to add/remove air.
Another thing to consider is how the tire information is going to be viewed. In my case, the kit came with a small solar powered display. I’m somewhat of a solar nut, so that was a real selling point for me. But the optimal word here is “small”, and that means you can’t see the display when it’s sitting out on the dash where it needs to be to soak up those battery charging protons.
So these are some of the things that I DIDN’T know when I purchased mine, and they are the reasons that I will be looking for a new one.
I hope this helps.
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