Hi all. Just a question at this stage. How often do you check your tyre pressures? I have a reason for asking this apparently innocuous question !

I usually check it once every couple of months, before long trips. And when there is a big change in outside temperature.

Tell us more, I get a sense there is more context in your question?

Well spotted Krukru. I have a 2025 2.0 Kodiaq Sportline Diesel. A few days before Chistmas 2025 I saw a message from the TPMS that detected a loss of pressure on the nearside rear tyre. Prior to this I had not appreciated how accurate and detailed the TPMS system could be. I immediately drove to a filling station and discovered that I had indeed suffered a puncture in that tyre from what looked like an industrial nail or screw.

Owing to the time of year I was not immediately able to do much to resolve the situation but over the next few days, again from the TPMS system, I noticed that there was no further loss of pressure noted. In effect, the intrusive object had in effect 'plugged the leak' in the tyre. Rather than drive at speed with a plugged/repaired tyre, I elected to replce the tyre with a new one of the exact same specification as that fitted at factory.

I collected my car from the Dealership in early March 2025. Now into February 2026 I received another message from the TPMS advising a loss of pressure but without any indication of which tyre was affected. At this point I have to come clean and admit that I hadn't checked my tyre pressures once since delivery. Today I inflated all tyres to the recommended pressures and reset them using the app on the infotainment screen and all is now well.

Much has been said on these forums (should that be fora) on the unreliability of modern electronic devices fitted to cars in the 21st century. I cite my own case as a rebuttal of that criticism. When these systems work as intended thay are a boon to motoring and ownership. What say all of you ?

Hello there,

It is recommended that you check it weekly. Personally I look at my car each time I go for a drive, but that normally is weekly, as this is not my daily driver.

I can recommend that you use N to fill your tires, as this will help you keep a more stable pressure and the rubber to keep fresh a bit longer.

As a separate note, I am curious as I could not find this in my 2025 VRS: do you see individual tire pressure displayed in a menu, did you see it individually displayed when you had that puncture, or it was just a generic "tire pressure low" without any indication of a specific tire? I'm asking as one of my pet peeves is the lack of direct TPMS sensors in my car (lack of possibility to option them as well and was assured that it has them, though I could not find them anywhere in my menus).

Cheers!

Presuming you intend N to indicate Nitrogen, this is not generally available in the UK.

In the case of the puncture the TPMS system indicated the nearside rear tyre. This indication appeared in the virtual dash screen as a yellow tyre symbol. In the case a few days ago the indication appeared in the same location but was more general, only a loss of pressure. The system does not show individual tyre pressures, but on resetting the tyre to the correct pressures today I saw a message to the effect that all tyres were set at the recommended specification.

In your case I suggest you press the car symbol in the infotainment screen top right, then press car symbol bottom left, and you will see a screen which allows you to check that the pressures are with 'tolerance' and reset them if necessary. If you don't see this option I'd conclude that your car is not fitted with a TPMS facility.

26 minutes ago, Colin1051 said:

Presuming you intend N to indicate Nitrogen, this is not generally available in the UK.

In the case of the puncture the TPMS system indicated the nearside rear tyre. This indication appeared in the virtual dash screen as a yellow tyre symbol. In the case a few days ago the indication appeared in the same location but was more general, only a loss of pressure. The system does not show individual tyre pressures, but on resetting the tyre to the correct pressures today I saw a message to the effect that all tyres were set at the recommended specification.

In your case I suggest you press the car symbol in the infotainment screen top right, then press car symbol bottom left, and you will see a screen which allows you to check that the pressures are with 'tolerance' and reset them if necessary. If you don't see this option I'd conclude that your car is not fitted with a TPMS facility.

I believe all vehicles since around 2015 have had to have TPMS fitted.

There are two types of TPMS (direct and indirect) the indirect system operates via the ABS system and compares differing rotational speeds to judge if pressure has been lost and it will indicate which wheel is affected - but the actual text indication (left/right/front/rear) is only displayed on the screen for a few seconds and is easy to miss, but it will be listed in the menu when you interrogate the fault.

Only the direct type TPMS will show individual tyre pressures.

This reminds me that I should clear the logged fault that gets left behind after the tyre pressure warning has been issued have been corrected and reset, probably use VCDS to do that!

I think that checking the tyre pressures once a week is a smart thing to do as "looking" at each wheel/tyre before jumping into the car, just avoids you driving with a completely flat tyre as low profile tyres do tend to conceal their "current status".

Thanks for this. I don't have an OBDII device but the car is due its first service later this month. I'll ask the dealership to check.

I suspect that TPMS flags are not permanently logged as DTCs.

3 hours ago, Warrior193 said:

I believe all vehicles since around 2015 have had to have TPMS fitted.

There are two types of TPMS (direct and indirect) the indirect system operates via the ABS system and compares differing rotational speeds to judge if pressure has been lost and it will indicate which wheel is affected - but the actual text indication (left/right/front/rear) is only displayed on the screen for a few seconds and is easy to miss, but it will be listed in the menu when you interrogate the fault.

Only the direct type TPMS will show individual tyre pressures.

Yes, I know, this is why I'm a bit puzzled by the two things @Colin1051 wrote: nearside rear tire - means direct TPMS, as it shows individual tire, vs the more recent "general" indication. I had direct TPMS in my Tiguan and I have indirect in my I20. The I20 does not show at all the fault, just the tire symbol light up and you have to check, while the Tiguan showed individual tire pressure, when checking this in the menu.

Indeed, by N I mean nitrogen and should be a good solution, even if not that common in UK. In RO we have this even on small garages, so I guess in UK you should be able to locate one, even if at a bigger garage.

I guess then Skoda decided in RO we do not need the direct TPMS on the VRS...

3 hours ago, Warrior193 said:

I suspect that TPMS flags are not permanently logged as DTCs.

It might be marque/model/age dependant, but I found that "event" logged quite a long time after the event - and that surprised me as I'd considered that once "you" had sorted the pressures out and reset the warning, that no traces would be left as they are hardly relevant. It's not as if the "event" that happened to me was a system malfunction, it was a genuine lose of tyre pressure in one wheel. I only discovered that logged fault while checking at service time.

The indirect system works by comparing the rotation speed of each wheel with a standard speed set when initiallised. If a tyre loses pressure it will rotate faster and the alarm will go off. I have two cars with indirect TPMS. On the older one (a Stellantis car) the alarm just shows that there is a pressure loss but not which tyre. I had this a couple of weeks ago. It was a piece of stone which produced a jagged unrepairable puncture, and the pressure loss was fast enough that I could feel where it was due to the way it pulled to the left. Our Karoq also once gave me a warning, but in this case it told me which tyre was affected. It should have been easy with a bit of extra coding to indicate which tyre is a problem.

My daughter has a 2008 Panda and that had a puncture about the same time as the Stellantis car. In both cases we were glad of the fact that both had spare wheels. It was inconvenient, but would have been far more inconvenient if they weren't available.. I would never have a car without a spare if at all possible.

As for filling with nitrogen, there are apparently some benefits, and some of the claims are true. But in a cost/benefit analysis the general opinion seems to be that it is a waste of money. It's ok for Formula 1 cars and airliners, but gains are really marginal for general use.

Edited 10 February10 Feb by Routemaster1461

15 hours ago, koditzadispater said:

Yes, I know, this is why I'm a bit puzzled by the two things @Colin1051 wrote: nearside rear tire - means direct TPMS, as it shows individual tire, vs the more recent "general" indication. I had direct TPMS in my Tiguan and I have indirect in my I20. The I20 does not show at all the fault, just the tire symbol light up and you have to check, while the Tiguan showed individual tire pressure, when checking this in the menu.

Indeed, by N I mean nitrogen and should be a good solution, even if not that common in UK. In RO we have this even on small garages, so I guess in UK you should be able to locate one, even if at a bigger garage.

I guess then Skoda decided in RO we do not need the direct TPMS on the VRS...

The VAG (Skoda) indirect TPMS does identify which wheel is affected - however the text message identifying which wheel is only displayed for a very short time, after which, it only displays the general warning. The identifying text is easily missed while driving - but it can be recovered by interrogating the vehicle status menu once you have stopped (or by co-driver)

It should be noted that the TPMS will also flag an increase of pressure, possibly caused by tyre overheating.

2 hours ago, Routemaster1461 said:

The indirect system works by comparing the rotation speed of each wheel with a standard speed set when initiallised. If a tyre loses pressure it will rotate faster and the alarm will go off. I have two cars with indirect TPMS. On the older one (a Stellantis car) the alarm just shows that there is a pressure loss but not which tyre. I had this a couple of weeks ago. It was a piece of stone which produced a jagged unrepairable puncture, and the pressure loss was fast enough that I could feel where it was due to the way it pulled to the left. Our Karoq also once gave me a warning, but in this case it told me which tyre was affected. It should have been easy with a bit of extra coding to indicate which tyre is a problem.

My daughter has a 2008 Panda and that had a puncture about the same time as the Stellantis car. In both cases we were glad of the fact that both had spare wheels. It was inconvenient, but would have been far more inconvenient if they weren't available.. I would never have a car without a spare if at all possible.

As for filling with nitrogen, there are apparently some benefits, and some of the claims are true. But in a cost/benefit analysis the general opinion seems to be that it is a waste of money. It's ok for Formula 1 cars and airliners, but gains are really marginal for general use.

Not sure on the prices in UK, but in RO it's 4 EUR for a N fill up (1 EUR / tire). It's not for the F1 cars, it's a good solution to keep your rubber fresh and to have a more constant tire pressure, as the N molecule is bigger, making it harder to escape through the rubber as it gets older and more porous. These are the main gains, as the lower tire temperature is not usually a concern for most regular cars, still N would keep a lower temperature in the summer, thus not having too much pressure. In winter, however, you might get a lower pressure, that is if you do not fill up or change tires/wheels, which I do.

Edited 10 February10 Feb by koditzadispater

Many thanks for this Warrior193. With all the other comments on here I was beginning to doubt whether I had direct or indirect TPMS. I saw the pressure drop on the left rear tyre notification quite clearly. I have since examined the TPMS menu on the infotainment screen and the car does not disclose individual tyre pressures. I clearly have an indirect TPMS system.

I've just scanned my 2011 Audi S4 and yes, it stores TPMS warnings in the ABS controller, it has probably a leak around the valves on the front tyres - these wheels were refurbished maybe 3 years ago due to leaks around the valve hole - ie localised corrosion due to my powder coater using the valve holes in the wheels to hook the wheels up from while working on the wheels, a lot annoying as I'll need to get the tyres off and the valves out, then I'll take them home and clean up and apply paint to that area on both the front wheels.

It is probably logical when you think about it, anything associated with the ABS function should get logged.

I'd need to force a TPMS warning on my wife's 2015 VW Polo to see if it also stores these events in the ABS controller.

You should keep also in mind that a "low pressure detected" signal comes upon every 10.000 kms, without reason, just to put on the right way drivers like me, who rarely check tyre pressures...i just check how car behaves, and thats it...it is not correct, for sure,but.....anyway, since system has this function, it is very good, since 10.000 kms for me is 3 months time....when it happened for the first time, i was scared, stopped aside, saw nothing wrong, and continued carefully, although nothing had changed regarding car behaviour....the next day i checked pressures, finding very low loss in every tyre, which is normal for 4 months period...i thought it was some kind of electronic malfunction...but checked manual, where it is a clear mention of the "10.000 km" rule....so now, i know...and i check