Indirect TPMS driving me nuts

It seems customer service believe that your car has mismatched tires, are they equal in tread depth and make/model?

Have you tried the TPMS calibration process on page 333 of the owners manual? Calibration is necessary after tire rotation or replacing one or more tires.

tires are original to car;same brand; have ~18,000 miles; till pass PA inspection of 2/32" minimum But all this is immaterial, They do NOT have low pressure which a TPMS is supposed to monitor.

don,thave awd and tires were rotated permanual

They know the tires are not mismatched but so what if they were ? TPMS is to monitor tire pressure,My recalibration is on page 107 (6step) It does not work. Honda dealer must tiurn off TPMS with their computer but only workls for ~150 miles because of tread wear difference

As you’ve already said, you have an indirect TPMS, which means it looks for differences in rotational speed between the 4 wheels. When one wheel is rotating faster than the others, it takes that to mean the tire pressure is low. But another thing that can cause the wheel to rotate faster is to have less tread on it than the other tires.

Your TPMS system does not have any idea what the actual air pressure in the tires is. You could be down to 10psi in all 4 tires, and TPMS wouldn’t go off because all 4 wheels would be rotating the same. What you really have is not a tire pressure monitoring system. You have a rotation speed difference monitoring system, and that’s why the tread depth does, in fact, matter.

Your next step should be to check your tread depth on all four tires and make sure it’s the same. Then you should verify that the diameter of all the tires is the same (use a flexible tape measure). Come back and report the results.

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Exactly! I do not have a government mandated Tire Pressure Monitoring System. I have a Tire ROTATIONAL Monitoring System which should technically violate the law. My 4 tires are not of equal tread depth. But so what? It is preposterous to required to buy 4 new tires of the same brand and tire depth when only 2 have less tread depth than the other 2. And what is a person supposed to do if they have one blow out, buy 4 new tires? I realize the indirect TPMS is cheaper to install for auto manufacturers but based on my experiance it is a inherently flawed Tire PRESSURE Monitoring System

No sense arguing about anything but the fact you have rotated your tires, and the tpms is erroring out. The next step imhop is to find out why the suspect tire is having an issue, it could be a sensor, alignment, suspension issue or bad tire, don’t take it as a curse but take it as an issue that needs to be resolved for your safety, and that of others.

No argument there. I’m very happy with the actual TPMS in my Acura, and would not want to step down to the cheap version. Unfortunately, indirect TPMS does qualify as TPMS under the law, so they can get away with it. But I wish they wouldn’t. The system is inherently inferior.

It actually is a safety issue to have a continuous false low pressure warning indicator which one tends to ignore.There are no sensors with a i TPMS, I do not have an alignment issue or a bad tire. All tire pass PA inspection. IHonda needs to switch back to a direct TPMS which monitors tire PRESSURE and not extraneous issues,

Folks, Mazda uses in an Indirect TPMS system as well. It does NOT require four tires of equal tread. Once the system is reset it should take a baseline reading of rotation on all four wheels to establish the “normal” tire pressure. Should one tire lose air it will rotate at a different speed and trip the TPMS light. While it is possible that all four tires could lose pressure at equal rates, the computer is smart enough to know this (don’t ask me how but I would guess based on upon RPM’s versus indicated speed or something similar).

I once had an issue where initializing the TPMS using the reset button would NOT reset the TPMS and the Mazda dealer had to perform some sort of “flash” of the system. It has been fine ever since.

FWIW - the Indirect TPMS is way cheaper to maintain and buy snow tires for. I am MUCH happier with the current system than the lunacy of the Honda/Acura system that was a real pain in my rear.

My 2009 Mexican Sienna has had a tire warning for the year plus I have had it. It may be the pressure sensors in the tire, I don’t know. I know the pressures are correct, so the car is safe to drive. The problem is if a tire goes bad on a trip I will not know until it blows.

If there’s no calibration work-a-round provided by the manufacturer, seems like your only choice is to put a piece of black tape over the warning light until you eventually buy new tires. None of my vehicles has ever had tpms, and I seem to get along ok for the past 50 years without it. I agree with you however, taping over the light shouldn’t be necessary. And neither should there be a requirement to buy new tires. But you got the system what you got. Other than buying a new car, besides the tape method, not much you can do about it.

I smell BS here. You say the tires are all original to the car, same brand, and have been rotated. It would be easy to measure the tread depth on each and see how much difference there is ( I predict almost none). I prefer indirect TPMS having owned both types (still do) and cannot see how this Honda can possibly be so sensitive as to alarm if the four original tires have very slight differences in tread wear. Either your dealer is full of baloney or this post is a “strawman” argument against indirect TPMS. I think you have a warranty issue here unless one of those tires is for some reason much more worn than the other three. Indirect TPMS is proven and has big advantages for those who live where it snows. It snowed 53 inches over two days in PA this week. When the TPMS light comes on without cause in a vehicle with indirect measurement it is almost always a bad ABS sensor. A simple and inexpensive fix. And your 2015 Civic is still under warranty if it has just 18K miles.

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I live where there’s snow, I pay $1000 for a set of tires on my real-TPMS-equipped Acura, and I can get sensors for 25 bucks a pop. $100 extra when I’m buying wheels isn’t going to be a big deal.

Wow. If the sensors are just $25 that is awesome. I thought they cost more than that. I am stripping the rubber twice per year on that vehicle and it is more of a hassle than the dedicated rims I have my winter Blizzaks on for my Highlander with Indirect measurement. I will double check the cost of the sensors the next time I buy.

Get them from Rockauto. If you get them at the dealership the markup is ridiculous.

Yup. I have been cruising Tire Rack since your post and my Forester’s would only have been about $173 per set. I should have gone that way and had them and new steel rims. Much less hassle and over time equal in price to swapping and rebalancing twice a year. I learned something today. Thanks!

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I smell a Honda representative here defending a inherently flawed indirect TPMS. The tire tread on all 4 tires have been measured numerous times by myself and 3 independent national tire dealers. There is 2 to 3/32 inch less tread on the front tires (now rear) and they all passed and still pass PA’s inspection of minimum 2/32". I agree this slight difference should not set off a i TPMS. In fact tread wear should not set off any Tire PRESSURE Monitoring System. A system that sensitive is a safety hazard. Do you think the government should mandate a TWearMS? I also agree, my dealer is full of baloney. They were clueless about the problem until they consulted with a Honda engineer. I also agree that I may have a warranty issue. American Honda has agreed to direct the dealer to “clear out all the old TPMS calibrations” at no charge when I eventually buy 2 or 4 tires in 2018 for PA inspection. If the TPMS does not stay off then I will file a claim with the state’s attorney general under the Lemon law. Please explain why you think indirect TPMS is a “big advantage” in snow. Are you not thinking of the linked ABS?

I hope to publicize the flaws of the Indirect TPMS to get outlawed.

The advantage of indirect tpms is that there ate no tire sensors in the wheels, thus no need to buy more sensors when you get extra wheels with no sensors on them. You asked a question and people answered it, which is what this forum is for. No one is trying to argue with you, but you are looking to start a crusade.

You have a right to start a crusade but since some of the members here prefer the indirect system, I don’t think this forum is the right place to start it

Most of us would not dream of going through a PA winter with tires of less than 4 /32.

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