The phrase “idiot light” is just a very old colloquialism. I first heard it from my father some 40+ years ago. I didn’t make it up or call TPMS “idiotic.” And it’s not a reference to the light as idiotic. It was always about drivers who didn’t do things like check their oil (or have it checked). It’s just an old saying.
I brought it up to say that since the OP does keep an eye on tire pressures, then having the TPMS working is less important than for people who don’t check tire pressures. And that is the only reason that I brought it up.
Like the OP my mom is an elderly woman, and she spends most of her time taking care of my ailing dad. I’m glad that she has TPMS on her car so that she doesn’t have this one more thing to worry about. (She’s also very good about having the car serviced regularly).
Yeah, in the old days cars had volt meters, temperature gauges, and oil pressure gauges. I don’t know when they switched but I had to Order the gauge option on my 74 olds. It was cheaper to just use warning lights bur the manufacturers justified it by claiming people didn’t check or understand the gauges, thus the idiot lights. You don’t have to know anything except when the light goes on, take it to someone. Like in a plane the recording pull up, pull up, instead of an altimeter although they haven’t removed those yet. So easy any idiot can figure it out. I don’t think any disrespect was meant to anyone.
Owners manuals also used to tell you how to adjust your valves and set points and stuff, now they warn you not to drink battery acid… well, a little harder to drink gel now a days… lol
Yeah. Sorry if that’s where you’re at right now. My wife “went to live with her mother” for over a year (until her passing) - but not because she was mad at me. Her mom couldn’t really function along. Same with my dad. My mom is 24/7 home health aid, though luckily she has a lot of support and very close by. Either way though - its very rough.
I keep a check on the tires and adjust the pressure as needed due to weather changes, including the spare tire, check the oil level and if it starts looking dirty earlier than normal oil change intervals, visually check coolant and brake fluid levels, refill washer fluid as needed, and keep the car clean inside and out.
Due to the Camry’s design, I’m able to easily change both the cabin and engine air filters myself.
Beyond that, I pay a professional to assess and work on the car. I know my limits both in knowledge and physical abilities.
However, years of reading and asking questions here in the forum has given me some education in how to proactively keep any car I own at the time better maintained. And for that I am grateful.
Years ago I had sweet older Lady about 87 years young (IIRC) that when her husband passed away (some years earlier) a moron, idiot, completely worthless mechanic ripped her off… After that she bought a repair manual for every car she had after that, and basically memorized it… She would come in and say Dave, my car is doing so and so, so I need such and such repairs… I would always confirm it (for free, that happens with very nice customers sometimes) and call her when done, yeah she new about what it would cost… I think she knew her cars better than the engineers did sometimes… lol…
How many miles in the current tires? While I imagine they are replacements, it’s possible that they are original equipment. I’d wait for tire replacement unless these tires are fairly new.
I appreciate the explanation. As you probably already know, I’m not born American, so I’ll struggle to understand there and there most times when reading from the American way of speaking.
There are a few members on here who I also don’t fully understand what they convey but I’m trying to get the gist of it.
HA!!! I was born and raised right here, and I still have to google some of them words these more smarter than me members be using with them there big college words…
UPDATE: Tires rotated along with oil change yesterday. Explained about the TPMS light coming on occasionally when the car has been driven longer distance than average daily use, despite repeated immediate pullover and manual pressure check of all four tires and again later when car has been parked for several hours afterwards. And explained that first time the warning light occurred the nearest tire shop available scanned and found one sensor not working.
However, all sensors did scan as working yesterday, probably because the sensor light was not on at the time. Mechanic said that perhaps one sensor is intermittently not working. He could offer no explanation how/why this keeps occurring whenever the car has been driven somewhere about thirty miles and/or thirty minutes non-stop except for idling at traffic lights.
Spending $80 x four wheels to replace all the sensors at once @ $320 + tax is simply not within my budget at present. Especially given that all four sensors properly scanned at present.
QUESTIONS:
How possible/probable is the suggested reason for the on again/off again TPMS warning light being “intermittent failure due to ten years age”?
How likely is it a computer and/or electrical glitch?
Any other possible causes to consider?
Thanks for any additional information and guidance that can be offered.
Marnet
BTW, when I have time in a day or so, I have some questions regarding tires and brakes. But I will start a new topic thread for that separate topic from this discussion.
I’ll just say it’s a battery and signal transmission over the air. The battery could be gettting weak or the signal could be intermittently failing for unknown reasons.
Like I said before, on one of our acuras, when we had back seat passengers, the transmission was blocked to the receiver in the trunk. The dealer wasn’t any help and no5 a big deal and traded anyway.
For me, if I could determine which tire was causing the problem, I’d have that sensor replaced. If not I wouldn’t worry about it and not worth replacing all of them which may not even resolve the issue.
