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 Foresterâs 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 PAâs 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 âclear out all the old TPMS calibrationsâ 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 stateâs attorney general under the Lemon law. Please explain why you think indirect TPMS is a âbig advantageâ 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 donât 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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Personally, I wouldnât drive in snow with all-season tires under 6/32.
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I live in PAâŠI definitely wouldnât drive through a PA winter with tires under 4/32
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The advantages of indirect TPMS in snowy areas are that one does not need to buy a second set of TPMS sensors for the winter tire/wheel combinations they use. The owner also does not have to reprogram or initialize the new TPMS sensors after swapping rubber. TMPS mandates (in the TREAD Act) arose out of a false pretense. The idea that Americans are too dumb to monitor their own tire pressures after the Ford Explorer/Firestone âFlip and Rollâ fiasco. Indirect TPMS uses already existing hardware and simple software to detect a flat tire. That was the mandate and indirect TPMS works every time. Google the terms âTPMS sensor troubleâ to get a feel for how many folks with direct TPMS are driven nuts by those. Both systems have advantages and disadvantages. Check back with us after you buy new tires. If the sensors stay off after the new tires are mounted it will be a great development. I wouldnât bet on it though. As you say, your Honda is under warranty and has tires with just 18K miles on them that have been rotated. Your problem is not with the TPMS design. If it were, every owner of every 2015 Civic with 18K miles would now have a TPMS problem. They donât.
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The problems with direct TPMS are many. Expensive, damaged by tire sealant. Battery replacement required.
And here is a new one: from my ownerâs manual (Forester). I canât put anything metal in the trunk area, which is silly.
Do not place metal film or any metal parts in the cargo area. This may cause poor reception of the signals from the tire pressure sensors, and the tire pressure monitoring system will not function properly.
And I like this one: (have no idea what this means. It will void my driverâs license?)
Changes or modifications not expressly approved by the party responsible for compliance could void the userâs authority to operate the equipment.
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@Franz_Sitar Mr. Goreham is an independent automotive writer. You have a problem so looking at another dealer is advised. As for challenging some imaginary TPMS law you are tilting at a windmill.
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OP, you might want to quit while youâre only somewhat behind.
That is just asinine.
How? What dangerous thing did you do when the TPMS light went on? And before you come back with âwell Iâll ignore the light if itâs that sensitive,â TPMS shouldnât be necessary at all because you should be a responsible driver and check your tire pressures anyway, whether you have TPMS or not, and whether itâs working or not.
Youâll lose. PA specifies that it has to substantially impair the use and/or safety of the vehicle. âI might not know what my tire pressures are because Iâm too lazy to lookâ will get shredded in court by the company lawyer.
Your TPMS may or may not be malfunctioning. That you keep saying your tires meet minimums of 2/32nd makes me suspect youâre running on nearly bald tires and are angry that your worn out tires are causing flaky readings. On the other hand, you might really have a problem in which case you should work with your dealer and American Honda to get it fixed rather than ratcheting the situation up to the point where no one is willing to talk to you, much less address the problem for you.
Iâve already said I agree with you that indirect TPMS isnât as good as actual TPMS, but that doesnât mean itâs illegal, or should be, or that you donât bear some responsibility for it. If indirect TPMS is so earth-shatteringly bad, why did you buy a car that had it?
Starting World War 3 with the dealership over this is going to get you precisely nowhere. Maligning long-standing forum members here who have the unmitigated temerity to disagree with you will get you nowhere but mocked.
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Dear shadowfox, Thank you for your previous reasonable posts. However, as for âmaligning a long standing forum memberâ Can long standing members insult newcomers with impunity? I was responding in kind to gorehamâs âI smell BS hereâ and accusing me of being a âstrawmanâ. Also excuse my ignorance for not knowing what type of TPMS the Honda Civic had before buying. I, and lâll wager 90+% of new car buyers have no idea there is more than one type, and I had no reason to inquire. The Honda new car window sticker does not specify indirect or direct.
Do you consider 4 to 6/32 âtire tread " nearly baldâ? Congratulations if you can afford to buy 4 new tires before necessary for state safety inspection. I only drive this car ~6,000 miles a year and am not going to buy $100+ tires to satisfy a flaky indirect TPMS.
The inexpensive âfixâ is to cover the TPMS symbol with black electrical tape. You could try that temporarily until it is fixed, or use it as a permanent fix if you prefer.
You DO have a government mandated TPMS system. Comparing rotational speeds is simply how the manufacturers met the mandate initially. Now they use pressure sensor sensors. That makes the wheel speed sensor system free to use for now-mandated stability control systems. Iâm not positive that this is the reason they now use pressure sensors, but thatâd be my guess.
I donât know how Honda did theirs, but my car (an '05 Scion) has two reset protocols, both addressed in different areas of the manual. One is to do a simple âresetâ without resetting the âbaselinesâ, the other a âreinitializingâ procedure that resets all the baselines. If I get new tires I have to âreinitializeâ the system or the TPMS light will continue to trigger. It doesnât take much to make a difference. I do not know if Honda uses this same approach, but thought Iâd offer it as a possibility anyway. Itâs worth checking into.
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Huh . . . ?
When the battery is dead, you buy a sensor, because theyâre sealed
That is the way to replace the battery 
How about coming at it from a different angle?
You buy the tires because theyâre worn out. Legal or not, theyâre pretty much done for
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My feeling is that the TPMS should have reset completely if full re-initialization was done by the dealer. This would solve the problems that are occurring. Failure to properly reset after this procedure means something is broken and needs to be replaced, either a sensor (or two) or a computer. I have been running an indirect system on one vehicle or another since 2008 and my current 2014 Mazda uses indirect TPMS. I have never had an issue that a reset or re-initialization couldnât correct, regardless of tire wear or tire set. I run separate wheel and tire sets for winter tires so this includes the fact that TPMS has worked properly on all of my vehicles with wheel and tire sets being swapped out twice a year.
If I were the OP I would move on to another dealer to see if a more skilled dealer can correct this more easily. Dealers make mistakes and sometimes have employees who are not highly skilled. Switching dealers and working with the service manager at the new dealer often gets you connected with someone who is a diagnostician, rather than a âplug and prayâ parts replacer or voodoo guessing mechanic.
Or request a copy of the initialization procedure from the dealerâs parts window.
Mine is in my Ownersâ Manual, but in a whole different section from the RESET procedure.
The 6 step re-calibration/reset procedure outlined in my owners manual does not work in my case.(ie. tread wear difference and subsequent rotational difference between 4 tires) Does a "full-re-initialization "( re-calibration?) have to be done by a Honda dealer? My Honda dealer charges $50 if I buy tires from someone other than them. Is it true that other tire dealers are not able to do a âfull-re-initializationâ of the Honda TPMS? I normally keep a car a long time and do plan on being married to Honda every time I need to buy new tires or need any other service I do not understand the TPMS re-set tools I see for sale on the internet. What systems and vehicles do they work on?
I am not as familiar with Honda, but with my Mazda I once had the same issue that you had and could not get the TPMS light to stay off. The dealer had to re-initialize the system, and I am sure they did it using highly specialized software and a hard wired connection to the OBD port, or some other hard connector under the hood or dashboard. You should not have to do this on a regular basis, at least if the Honda system is similar to Mazda. I reset the TPMS all the time when I swap out snow tires and all season tires and almost never have any issues. Itâs only when the system gets confused and has to be completely re-initialized that the dealer comes into play.
To answer your question, itâs likely a âdealer onlyâ type scenario since expensive, proprietary software is involved. The TPMS tools you see on the internet are typically for direct TPMS systems with battery operated sensors in the tires. Often called a âtrigger toolâ, they are needed to make the carâs computer recognize new sensors, since the car is married to one set of sensors at a time. I use one of these on my wifeâs Ford Fusion each time we swap out her tires (snow tires for all season and vice versa). It results in a hilarious ballet around the car that must be completed in 60 seconds or less or the process times out and fails.