Tyre pressure warning - does it work?

[ms10]

I got a puncture in the front left the other day.  The tyre was completely flat due to a screw in it.  Fortunately i noticed this as i was reversing out of the drive.

 

However, there was no tyre pressure warning from the car.  Shouldn't it have picked up that the tyre was fully flat?

[ahenners]

Yes it should, sounds like something is not right. When was the last time you reset the pressures in the infotainment?

 

I picked up a puncture from a nail last year and it warned me whilst driving down the motorway. Tyre was nowhere near flat so I hadn't even noticed.

[gregoir]

Yes. Mine notified me twice when a tyre pressure dropped by 3psi from the set level. You do néed to inflate your tyres to the correct pressure and then press buttons to feed in the datum point.

A sudden deflation while stationary would not be picked up. The system relies on different speeds of rotation which takes a while to compute.

Edited 27 July, 2018 by gregoir

[penguin17]

8 minutes ago, gregoir said:

Yes. Mine notified me twice when a tyre pressure dropped by 3psi from the set level. You do néed to inflate your tyres to the correct pressure and then press buttons to feed in the datum point.

A sudden deflation while stationary would not be picked up. The system relies on different speeds of rotation which takes a while to compute.

This.  The ABS sensor detects rotational speeds of the wheels and when a change is detected it attributes it to a loss in tyre pressure/puncture.   If the wheels aren't rotating then it can't make the calculations. 

[edwards]

t'missus's Yeti threw me a warning the other day and it was 3psi down - had a screw in it.  I was actually quite impressed as its not something that my usual monthly checks would necessarily have found quickly.

 

As others have said, its an ABS speed sensor based system not one with transponders so it won't work until the car is moving enough for the detection to occur.

[Octy0GG]

Have wondered how long would you need to drive round in circles to trigger a false alarm or is the system clever enough to ignore the differences between road wheel rotations when steering wheel not in straight ahead position? - Probably not though, my guess is it just relies on left and right turns cancelling each other out when monitored over several miles.

 

Can confirm that it does take a while to notice a change. Had winter wheels and tyres fitted without resetting TPMS took 5 miles driving before warning. 

[Gaz]

Mine's now gone off four times in the last two months.  All completely accurate and identified a problem before I noticed it.  So yes, mine works.

 

Gaz

[ScoutCJB]

On 27/07/2018 at 12:17, ms10 said:

I got a puncture in the front left the other day.  The tyre was completely flat due to a screw in it.  Fortunately i noticed this as i was reversing out of the drive.

 

However, there was no tyre pressure warning from the car.  Shouldn't it have picked up that the tyre was fully flat?

 

I does work but as above it's done off wheel speed so my understanding is that you may need to drive it a short distance to tigger.

 

I had new tyres fitted and hadn't reset the values, it took 12 miles before it triggered even though noting wrong.

[Russ77]

Mine's only ever gone off once and it was a false alarm.

 

My suspicion was that I had a lot of weight in the boot (went away for 3 nights with the missus & our two girls so almost needed a roof box!!!) and I was moving slowly in a load of traffic on the M25, I edged over on to the rumble strip to try and get a better look along the road and the warning came on.  I think that was enough to make it think there was different rotation speed on my rear o/s wheel.

Checked the pressures at the services which were fine, reset pressures on the infotainment unit and it went away.

[Guest]

One of first things I did when collecting the Octavia (even tho garage said they did it) was reset sensor. Hasn't gone off on Octavia yet, but went off on our SEAT (same system). Wouldn't have discovered there was a nail in tyre without it.

 

My previous car (Renault) had a habit of warning me after exiting a motorway (say driving for an hour at 70mph) - change in pressure due to tyre cooling set it off. Far too sensitive for it's own good.

Edited 31 July, 2018 by Guest

[Gabbo]

3 hours ago, ScoutCJB said:

I had new tyres fitted and hadn't reset the values, it took 12 miles before it triggered even though noting wrong.

 

I guess the difference here is that all 4 wheels have the wrong values & so the system takes some time to set to allow for driving on a slippery/uneven surface or something like this.

In this case it doesnt tell you about a particular tyre & its leading you to reset the system.

 

When you have all 4 tyres giving nominal readings & then one which suddenly or gradually changes from the others the system should be quick to react.

Here it will tell you which Wheel it has detected the anomalie e.g. front left.

[ScoutCJB]

Think your right as it's happened twice now.  Once when I brought the car and had my tyres (which were only 1 month old) swapped onto it, and the 2nd time when I brought new alloys and tyres to run as a summer set up.

[HotVRs]

It does work. It (in my empirical experience) is less sensitive than early MK3 Octavia's which were silly sensitive. It will eventually tell you if you have been lazy and let pressures drop (usually by 3-4 psi). My only gripe, is that after a tyre change or other wheel change, it will often then repeatedly trigger for no reason. I had 3 warnings on a 200 mile M/Way journey, I stopped twice to check and then ignored it, next day I checked with a gauge and the tyre was fine. So all in all, it works in my experience, but once unsettled it can be a little sensitive for a while.

 

[JohnnyType2]

mine worked, i kept resetting it thinking it was busted, until i got PO'd and took the wheel off to discover a nail right through my brand new tyre 

 

Edited 2 August, 2018 by JohnnyType2