Swapping front & rear wheels over issues?

[MikeM46]

So dropped into my local Protyres to ask about swapping my front & back tyres over. All are Michelin Cc2s. Rears have about 7mm

on them & fronts c 5.5mm … all on a 68 reg SEL Exec estate (tdi 190/dsg/4x4)

 

Am well aware of current thinking to have best tread depth on the rear but was interested in getting better fwd grip for a trip to a very rural Welsh cottage reached via a farm track.

 

Anyway, Protyres couldn’t do the swap immediately and I was advised that they had had issues doing this swap with the tpms system become upset and unfixable  from the car, would need a dealer reset. Something to do with the wheel sensors?

 

So leaving as is for now, but anyone have any experience of this issue. Seems a bit mysterious, maybe it’s to do with front & rear having two slightly different rolling circumferences, b ut wouldn’t that then also apply to putting new tyres on only the front or rear?

[numskull]

2 hours ago, MikeM46 said:

I was advised that they had had issues doing this swap with the tpms system become upset and unfixable  from the car, would need a dealer reset. Something to do with the wheel sensors?

Errrr… that’ll be bulllll-sh1te!  I’ve swapped the tyres round a couple of times without any problems. 

[Breezy_Pete]

Go elsewhere or DIY.

[Gizmo]

There are no sensors in the wheels, they use the ABS sensors. 
 

Find someone who knows what they are doing / talking about 

[JR RS]

Lol, as mentioned already above - find urself a new tyre place.

 

Ur car has indirect TPMS.  It has no internal wheel sensors, and uses the ABS sensors to determine tyre pressure loss, based on rotational speed.

U can swap ur tyres front to back, left right, diagonal, any way ur heart is content - the TPMS won't blink an eye lid.

 

Even if u did have direct TPMS, i.e. with wheel sensors inside, u can still swap tyres around without any issues.

 

I have direct TPMS in my Superb, and I've swapped the tyres around with no issues at all.

The TPMS module uses relative position to determine the wheel sensor location, and adapts to suit.

 

[MikeM46]

Thanks for your replies all.

Just to correct my loose term “wheel sensors”! By that  I meant sensors that sense the wheels, not sensors on the wheels themselves!

[Ootohere]

@MikeM46it made no difference.

 

You reset the TPMS each time you check and reset the tyre pressures do you not without a visit to a dealership.

[ApertureS]

On 02/12/2023 at 16:13, MikeM46 said:

Thanks for your replies all.

Just to correct my loose term “wheel sensors”! By that  I meant sensors that sense the wheels, not sensors on the wheels themselves!

There are no sensors that sense wheels.

 

You have rotation sensors called abs or wheel speed sensors.

 

but the wheels themselves are not unique to a corner.

 

just reset the tpms system once the swap is done 

[MarkyG82]

As an interesting aside, MrsG's hyundai has direct TPMS and there's no reset function as far as I could tell.  Just pump to the correct amount and as long as they are within a certain range* the light goes out and you carry on you merry way.

 

* unclear if this is a fixed range or relative to the other pressures.

[JR RS]

@MarkyG82 - it's the same with Skoda - direct TPMS doesn't need resetting.

Indirect TPMS does.

 

U can see the differences in the image below.

 

With the direct TPMS, the target pressure is in brackets.  If the actual drops more than 4 psi, it will alarm.