I've not had any actual punctures yet with this car up until today that is. Car has been giving warnings recently about loss of pressure front left tyre, checked it a week ago, slightly down, put some air into it, checked other tyres all good. The warning light came on again a few days ago but no obvious sign of a puncture; thought it was probably a slow puncture and was going to get it checked this week. However, driving home tonight in the wind and rain I became aware of a thumping, scraping sound at rear of car. When I stopped I found that the rear left tyre was completely and absolutely flat but no warning of this tyre going down was given by the car at all!

 

 

That tyre had given same warnings of loss of pressure in December but didn't seem to be losing much air, garage replaced valve in it in January when it was in for its first service.

 

 

So, if I'm reading this right, the Octavia can only cope with one puncture/ loss of pressure warning at a time and if you happen to have a sudden massive loss of pressure in any other tyre, it will keep the good news to itself and leave you to run the tyre completely and absolutely flat... That tyre was fine when I checked it a week ago with all the others but may well be completely ruined now because I had to drive the car a short distance before I could stop it; thank you so much for this Skoda! I managed to reinflate it but couldn't really check it properly in the pouring rain. 

The system on our cars doesn't have any devices inside the wheel to monitor the pressures like other brands. It's a half-assed system that just computes wheel speed from the abs sensors. If it detects a wheel moving slightly faster than the other ones, due to it going flat and having slightly less circumference, it flags up a puncture.

 

But it doesn't work very well, as you have found out!

7 minutes ago, Ray Luxury-Yacht said:

The system on our cars doesn't have any devices inside the wheel to monitor the pressures like other brands. It's a half-assed system that just computes wheel speed from the abs sensors. If it detects a wheel moving slightly faster than the other ones, due to it going flat and having slightly less circumference, it flags up a puncture.

 

But it doesn't work very well, as you have found out!

 

As you said Ray, it doesn't work very well at all! I didn't entirely understand how that system works, now I know that you can't rely on it at all. It would probably have worked if I'd reset the tyre warning for the front left tyre, which I would have done if I'd known what I know now. Surely this is desperately unsafe, I could have been on a motorway in the fast lane when the rear left tyre punctured; not a good thought at all!

44 minutes ago, AllanDJ said:

 

As you said Ray, it doesn't work very well at all! I didn't entirely understand how that system works, now I know that you can't rely on it at all. It would probably have worked if I'd reset the tyre warning for the front left tyre, which I would have done if I'd known what I know now. Surely this is desperately unsafe, I could have been on a motorway in the fast lane when the rear left tyre punctured; not a good thought at all!

 

Yeah it's not that great Allan, but at least you've been looking at your own tyres, and keeping an eye on them before this happened, which heartens me greatly because I dare say 90% of the driving population doesn't ever bother to do so!

 

I suppose the least you could say is it is better than having nothing. Although with regard to your comment about being on a motorway, doesn't necessarily mean it would be a horrendous problem. Back in around 2003, I was driving my Volvo S40 in lane two of a dual carriageway at 70mph plus a bit (!) when I had a catastrophic failure of the nearside rear. The tyre blew and de-laminated with such ferocity, it tore a huge hole in the side of the plastic rear bumper. Despite this, and a loud bang, the car remained in control and I was able to bring it safely to the side with no dramas. 

 

It was a fairly new Pirelli, and the post-mortem did not reveal the cause. I can only assume I was unlucky enough to run over something like a sharp piece of angle-iron or something.

 

Anyway sorry to hear of your drama, I hope you're feeling more relaxed about it now. Sounds like an occasion for beer o'clock! Cheers and stay safe mucker.

 

3 hours ago, AllanDJ said:

It would probably have worked if I'd reset the tyre warning for the front left tyre, which I would have done if I'd known what I know now.

 

That's it in a nutshell. Provided that whenever you get a warning you act on it and then reset the system immediately it is not a big problem and not really unsafe. It's a cheap way for the manufacturers to meet a legal requirement that applies to all new cars these days, and I think you will find it on most other brands too. It has its limitations, but after five years of ownership I find it is still worth having.

 

Had the same system on my Honda Civic. Yes it’s a basic system, but has saved me 3 times driving with a slow puncture, each time I had picked up a screw or nail from my works car park. It’s the same system on the Octavia. The important bit is to reset the system every time you put air in the tyres. This ensures the system is kept up to date with tyre pressures. It’s not a glitch but needs keeping an eye on.

Edited 24 February, 20215 yr by FrankNicklin

The OP should act as a warning to many, just as a TPMS warning should.

 

Getting a warning of loss of pressure from when the pressures were set and the TPMS was reset and having to reinflate tyres and reset the TPMS means the simple system is working and the vehicles operator thinks slow punctures is no biggy.

 

Well slow punctures can be in the tread or the sidewall or the bead or even the valve and should obviously not be ignored, as doing so is just not 'simply clever'.

As all comments above,  the system works well if you act on a warning and reset the system after taking action. Mine warned me of this with only a slight deflation recently.

Edited 24 February, 20215 yr by Kenny R

Its a half-arsed system that is better than no system warning. Ive had more false positive errors than I care to remember. Usually the system tells me 100 miles after I have changed a tyre (due to puncture or replacement).

 

However I duly check my tyre pressures and press reset expecting miracles to occur in terms of tyre protection. Ever the optimist.

1 hour ago, varaderoguy said:

Usually the system tells me 100 miles after I have changed a tyre (due to puncture or replacement).

 

Is this because you didn't reset the system after changing the tyre?

 

1 hour ago, e-Roottoot said:

the vehicles operator thinks slow punctures is no biggy.

 

Not necessarily. Resetting the system means you should get a warning of any further problems that may arise before you can get the slow puncture fixed, and it should alert you to a further drop in pressure.

 

The indirect system was flawless on my MK2 FL and so far, no issues on my MK3 FL issue.

 

However, a buckled alloy, damaged tyre or even just certain road conditions are reported to trigger a false alarm though.

 

I've recently ordered the parts to retrofit the direct system so if the OP is concerned about this in the future, they may want to consider the same

Yeah ive had road conditions trigger mine ,up in the middle of north yorkshire moors on not very even roads to say the least ,caused it twice in same week ,other than that its been spot on.

47 minutes ago, OldBoyScout said:

 

Is this because you didn't reset the system after changing the tyre?

 

 

Not necessarily. Resetting the system means you should get a warning of any further problems that may arise before you can get the slow puncture fixed, and it should alert you to a further drop in pressure.

 

 

My experience was it wasnt great at detecting a really slow puncture / loss of air over a prolonged period - I'd normally pick that up when I check the pressures every few weeks or may notice it when cleaning it which is generally weekly.  Any decent air loss and I knew straight away though and the only false alarm was when I had new tyres and garage said they had reset values but clearly hadnt.  It took about 20 miles before I got a dash alert.

The simple system was originally for the sake of Muppets with run flats on other manufacturers who might well have been German.  To alert Muppets that might not have noticed they had a puncture.   The system allows you to have tyres at different pressures or a spare on of a different size and set the TPMS and not have alerts.    The whole TPMS thing is just needing getting to know about, and thought that pressures set cold and rechecked might show no change, but a binding brake or a bearing on the way out can have a wheel/ tyre heat more than the others or than the one on the same axle and cause an alert.  No puncture and no pressure loss.

1 hour ago, OldBoyScout said:

Is this because you didn't reset the system after changing the tyre?

Nope - reset it. The resetting also seems to be a bit querky in its functionality. An additional reset after 100 miles seems to fix the issue.

It's not a perfect system but its better than not having any. Think of how many accidents have been prevented, how many lives saved since TPMS became a thing. Most treat their cars as an appliance, never check under the bonnet, get their blown bulbs fixed at MOT time, completely ignore the state of their tyres. 

The system used on these cars is in some ways better than having those sensors in the wheels. 

It does assume that, if you have a partial flat in one tyre, you get that fixed and check all of the others at the same time, before resetting the system. 

1 hour ago, TDIum said:

It's not a perfect system but its better than not having any. Think of how many accidents have been prevented, how many lives saved since TPMS became a thing. Most treat their cars as an appliance, never check under the bonnet, get their blown bulbs fixed at MOT time, completely ignore the state of their tyres. 

The system used on these cars is in some ways better than having those sensors in the wheels. 

It does assume that, if you have a partial flat in one tyre, you get that fixed and check all of the others at the same time, before resetting the system. 

In a way the system forces you to do that. I just get the general warning &  then need to check the pressures on all 4 tyres.

Just to add that not all direct systems report pressures on each tyre or report which tyre has low pressure.

 

My previous car (an Audi B7 RS4) had direct TPMS with pressure and temperature sensors in 4 wheels, but like all B7 Audis there was no means of seeing the pressure or temperature of each wheel on either the entertainment system or the instruments - you had to use a diagnostic tool like VCDS.

 

How come? Because Audi didn't add the firmware into either the entertainment system or the instruments to display the TPMS data, so all you got was a tyre pressure warning symbol on the instruments.