Hello,

          I am working my way through the unfamiliar items on my 17 plate  1.2 TSI SEL estate since I bought it 4 days ago. Of which there are quite a few I have to say! I had a 2013 Fabia estate SE before  and that did not have a lot of the features I have got now.  I  have now arrived at  the tpms..  I am one of those people who checks the tyre pressures regularly on any car they own and find tpms to be unnecessary  but its there  so I am now expected to  have to input any changes I make to the tyre pressures.  The plate by the petrol cap says 2.2 bars all round with 3 people on board and some luggage. Its  nearly always  just my wife and I in the car with no passengers so that would be 2.1 all round?    That is for just my wife and I with just a toolbag and a pump in the boot plus a spare wheel.  I wouldnt have expected anything to flash up tpms wise  in just 4 days and it hasnt but I clearly do need to get to grips with this system.

 

           For a start, as the pressures are the same all round, do I take it that when the road wheels are rotated front to rear I do not have to input this? I will be getting my independent to do the rotation soon as I am a great believer in tyre longevity and find  the rotation  really promotes this.

 

         I got a 15 inch steel spare wheel supplied as part of the deal and if I was unlucky and had a puncture and had to have the spare wheel fitted.  I understand that has to be inflated to the maximum permitted pressure before it becomes a road wheel.  Presumably,  I would have to input that pressure to the system for that wheel and input again when the alloy wheel gets refitted?

 

          The inputting itself  is also a "first" for me. I have of course read the handbook. I have two methods available to me. I can use the infotaintment  system or I can use the key , following the instructions in both cases. Is there a useful  "idiot guide" out there that will help me until I get the hang of it? Like everything else I imagine that once  i have done it a couple of times it will be easy but in the meantime any tips would be useful.

 

             This may seem a silly question but is there any way I can permanently disable this system or even switch it off before each trip? I can do that with the stop start and i would like to do that with the tpms.

               

              Thanks in advance.

 

               

Like for the general tone of the post. Skodas generally use inferred pressure based on the rotational speed returns from the ABS sensors so you can't switch it off, and since the weight distribution is uneven you do have to reset the system if you must swap tyres about.

TPMS finally were made compulsory.  It was about time, but you still need to regularly check or adjust tyre pressures, then just reset the system.

There really is no need for them to be faulty and give false warnings.

Simple to set the tyre pressures to what you want, and the 4 do not need to be the same. front and rear could be different, the odd one out spare can be fitted and the TPMS reset and you should be none the wiser unless the TPMS picks up an issue.

I keep my spare at 2.5 bar which allows for any loss when not used and then set it at the recommended pressure if I need to fit it.

I agree with the others. TPMS works absolutely fine: it's a safety system, so why would you want to turn it off!

 

I presume your spare is a steel space saver. These have restricted use, so why worry about the TPMS if you have to fit it as you are suppose to have the damaged wheel repaired and refitted as soon as practical. FWIW, I never had to use one on either my Octavia estate or Yeti, so now I choose not to have one at all. It saves weight and room and 99% of recovery services carry a space saver so that you can get to the nearest tyre repair shop.

3 hours ago, TerFar said:

I agree with the others. TPMS works absolutely fine: it's a safety system, so why would you want to turn it off!

Ug, soggy words!!  Seriously, I said you can't turn TPMS off, but since you have to check the pressures and reset it periodically anyway it seems fairly useless to me (and I've experienced a genuine blow out at 60ish mph).

The system like we are talking here came in because people were having punctures with run flat tyres and not aware.

 

There are people that never check or adjust tyre pressures from collecting a new car, a hire car, courtesy car, used car etc and do not know the pressures, 

maybe collecting from a service or new tyres fitted and not knowing the pressures, nobody can help the stupid, there are no guide dogs for them.

 

But those that drive with flat tyres can be helped, and there are plenty of them around.

1 hour ago, KenONeill said:

Ug, soggy words!!  Seriously, I said you can't turn TPMS off, but since you have to check the pressures and reset it periodically anyway it seems fairly useless to me (and I've experienced a genuine blow out at 60ish mph).

You only need to reset the tpms if you've changed tyre pressure. So presuming you always aim to keep the pressure at 2.2 bar (or whatever is refommended for your car), it's hardly likely to need a reset except if you have occasion to go on a long trip fully loaded or if your tpms has triggered because of low pressure. 

 

For me, far more annoying is start /stop. That can be deactivated permanently! My suspicion is that unless you live or work in a big city which you commute regularly with constant start/stop motoring, the fuel saving is minuscule if at all. 

Edited 8 January, 20206 yr by TerFar

14 minutes ago, TerFar said:

reset the tpms if you've changed tyre pressure

...or the tyres lose (or gain) air pressure naturally through leakage, altitude or air temperature.

 

I do agree with you about "start/stop" though.

@TerFar

Read the Owners Manual on doing TPMS checks.  When you do those you are resetting the TPMS.

 

A member here in the Citigo section said how many psi his alloys and tyres every few weeks.

 

Tyres losing pressure equally or nearly all equally is common enough that checking the tyres / pressures and resetting the TPMS should be done as regularly as under bonnet checks are done, and lights rather than waiting on warning systems. But then we know how there are many that check nothing unless things do give a warning or go wrong.

As has been said, Fabia 3 (and most if not all other models) use the comparison of wheel rotation speed to detect a soft tyre. If the pressure drops, the rolling radius drops so the wheel goes round faster compared to the others. There are some cars that have active sensors built into the wheels that measure and transmit the tyre pressure and temperature.

 

The system is surprisingly sensitive and can sense this way sooner than you would see it, though checking pressures would obviously also pick it up. Those who are criticising ought to remember that picking up a small nail could lead to enough pressure loss to cause a problem in between checks without it being obvious. We had a small leak that triggered the warning between checks, but didn't even show when the tyre place checked it. I did see it when prompted to check the pressures between normal checks which is why I went to the tyre place. Only when they took the tyre off to do a rim reseal did they find the tiny pin.

 

And why is it important? If a tyre is soft, then the sidewall flexes much more than it should as the wheel goes round. This flexing generates heat, and the heating can cause the rubber to fail, quite suddenly. Many years ago there was a particular issue with a certain brand of tyre fitted to SUVs in the US (Ford I think) that caused quite severe problems if run a little soft and I think resulted in deaths. So there were FMVSS requirements brought in to warn drivers if they had soft tyres, and more recently similar requirements have been brought in within ECE regs, rightly so IMO.

Firestone & Ford.

 

I always understood the issue was Run Flat Tyres and BMW / MINI.  But maybe that was just what i gathered for Europe.   Drivers not knowing they had a puncture.

2 minutes ago, Roottootemblowinootsoot said:

Firestone & Ford.

 

I always understood the issue was Run Flat Tyres and BMW / MINI.  But maybe that was just what i gathered for Europe.   Drivers not knowing they had a puncture.

My nice next door neighbour recently got rid of his company car (he works in new road construction) and bought a 2007 BMW 320i Convertible but most of the alloys had damage which was resulting in slow punctures so he bought a new set of alloys and bought 2 new tyres but commented that  he wouldn't buy runflats that came with the car for the replacement cost, awful ride and the increased road noise.

Now that you have mentioned "runflats", my wife's sister and her husband were driving up to London from Kent and they had a puncture in their 2013 BMW 320 Diesel estate, so they got uplifted and taken to a big tyre fitting place, so 1 tyre dead, its mate near as finished and the rear 2 not too good, so they got a full set of the correct tyres fitted on it, so that meant runflats, seems that sometime in the past, even although that car has no spare wheel well, or any other fixer stuff in, they ended up getting changed to ordinary tyres at a tyre change, car has over 130K on the clock, and so that meant, well when someone that knows about cars told them about their car now having ordinary tyres, they from that point on always kept the topbox that they used for trips in Corsica etc, on the car and bought and stored a spare wheel in it - so now the spare wheel is being sold on and the topbox coming off. Dog cage lives in the boot so luggage space at a premium.

 

In general they have never liked that car too much, but I think most of that is that BMWs, it seems, can be quite demanding cars unlike their previous M-B E and C class which seems to look after their drivers who invariably don't care too much about needing to be "at one" with their cars. Luckily they are getting older so deafness might dull the noise these tyres make.

Random musing/additions.

Temperature has a huge effect on tyre pressures. I had a couple of 'false positives' a couple of years ago when it got really cold. Not happened since.

 

So you set your tyre pressures when cold and set the TPMS to the pressures you put the tyres at.

They heat up when driven they cool when cold and sitting, and get cooler as the ambient and ground temp reduces.

Everyone is not getting false positives though.   Just the odd ones, maybe never pressures checked regularly enough....

59 minutes ago, Roottootemblowinootsoot said:

So you set your tyre pressures when cold and set the TPMS to the pressures you put the tyres at.

They heat up when driven they cool when cold and sitting, and get cooler as the ambient and ground temp reduces.

Everyone is not getting false positives though.   Just the odd ones, maybe never pressures checked regularly enough....

It was -14 at one point 😛

My assumption was that they tyres must be warmed at different rates and triggered it somehow.

It will have been -14*oC for all the others around you.   

 

Tyres can heat up at different rates, under inflated ones, the wheel at a binding brake can overheat etc.

None of this is new stuff, and neither is cold temperatures. 

Edited 25 January, 20206 yr by Roottootemblowinootsoot

16 hours ago, Roottootemblowinootsoot said:

It will have been -14*oC for all the others around you.   

 

Tyres can heat up at different rates, under inflated ones, the wheel at a binding brake can overheat etc.

None of this is new stuff, and neither is cold temperatures. 

If you have filled your tyres  at a higher temperature all your tyres will be underinflated when really cold.

All tyres are incorrectly inflated in the rain due to cooling.

Nothing can be perfect.

 

Yes.  So?   What the TPMS is when there is an odd one out from what they were set at.  You can set with different pressures in tyres.

 

No but no need for false alerts.  It is you that had them.

  Instructions on checking tyres warns you about checking outside and not in garages,