(possibly) silly question. can tyre fitter damage tyre pressure sensor?

bigmike20vt · 2025-02-02T14:32:20+0000

Hi
My wife and I have a BMW i3 and Jag ipace.
both cars have warnings for if tyre pressure is low and I know from experience both of them worked OK.

over the last few months we have had new tyres put on both cars. Yesterday I noticed my wifes tyres were looking worryingly flat and when I checked them they were all over 10psi down on what they should be.

I checked my car as well and my ipace was also down 10PSI as well.
I am not worried about the low pressure as such however I am worried that neither car had a low pressure warning. it seems quite a coincidence for both cars to stop and given the same tyre place put new boots on i am wondering if they could have done something to the tyre?

thanks.

mjt · 2025-02-02T14:48:45+0000

Do your cars have TPMS in the tyres (can you see the PSI on the iDrive?) or is it just using the wheel speed sensors?

bigmike20vt · 2025-02-02T15:56:38+0000

I will have a look on the idrive when I get home however both cars have TPMS

gc123 · 2025-02-02T16:36:12+0000

not sure if they can mess new ones up but years ago when lagunas came out with them i remember a alarm rep that visited us having major problems cause the tyre centre screwed his sensors up ,think they had a ribbon or wire in the rim, took months of back and forth to sort.

muon · 2025-02-02T16:40:44+0000

If valve sensors, I'd say near impossible. They are all solid plastic and can take a beating given they are on the wheel of a car.

Kenai · 2025-02-02T16:41:09+0000

bigmike20vt said:
I will have a look on the idrive when I get home however both cars have TPMS

TPMS typically covers two very different systems though.

Proper active systems with pressure sensors attached to the valves inside the tyre and also systems that monitor for difference in wheel speed by assessing the ABS sensor readings.

If you had the active type and they were damaged, I would expect the system to throw errors and faults rather than simply not picking anything up.

The ABS system is OK for spotting an odd wheel with differences due to a puncture but all four wheels slowly losing pressure will rarely trigger such systems.

I'd say probably most likely is neither system was reset properly after the tyre change so won't have been working from a decent baseline in the first place, beyond that you've got little chance of either type of system doing anything useful.

TPMS is OK for detecting punctures, I wouldn't rely on it for generally telling you if pressures have dropped all round.