-ian

ive been offered a cracking deal on a set of alloys with winter tyres fitted. I want to get these and put them in the garage until winter.

Now these wheels don't have tyre pressure monitors fitted. I am fully aware that I will get a red warning on the dash which I just need to accept and it goes away. What I want to know is how often will this message come on. If it's every 30 minutes of so I can live with that. If it's a lot more frequent I can see it really annoying me.

Another option is my local MB dealer will get the TPMS coded out for £60 plus tax. Down side is it will cost the same again to code it back again when I refit my original alloys.

So if anybody can tell me the frequency of the alert that would be greatly appreciated.

CarHopper

You'll always have a warning light that looks like a horseshoe with an exclamation point. As for the message popping up in the center, it should only happen once (likely when you start the car) and then just press okay and the message will go away and wont come back until you restart your car.

You can also just have it coded out like you mentioned, however, I'd just leave it alone and deal with the warning light for the winter time.

Or, you could also just get a set of TPMS sensors and not have any warning lights.

-ian

Excellent. Thanks for that. Funny that even a supposed master tech at a MB main dealer didn't mention the permenant warning light. I think I will just live with the light on over the winter.

Too much effort to buy new sensors, strip the tyres off the alloys to fit the sensors, then have the risk of a tyre fitter damaging them and finally have to put the wheels on the car and take it to MB to code in the sensors, then to swap the wheels back over again

Tbh the TPMS is a pain. It's a good idea if you had run flats because you could have a puncture and not realise. With normal tyres it becomes apparent quite quickly and a light flashing up isn't going to tell me anything I don't already know

CarHopper

The only thing I take advantage of is checking my tire pressures from time to time through the dash menus. I find those to be pretty accurate and when the temps start to dip up here the pressure will drop a little. So that's all I really use it for. Otherwise I'll save my money and not get tpms.

Interesting that they can code it out. I'll have to ask my dealer if they'd do the same for me so I don't have to get them either.

-ian

They said they would do some of the coding at the dealership then they would have to send the data across to Germany to have it fully removed from the vehicle. Seems like a lot of effort and not the German efficiency I would have expected. Can't complain though as I've heard a lot of dealers refuse to do it.

I'm guessing they make more money selling sensors plus you then have to pay to have it coded to the car !!

unruin

I got TPMS with my new wheels and no additional coding was needed. Not a bad way to go if you are going to be swapping back and forth.

Diabolis

If you actually have a car that requires discrete TPMS sensors in each wheel, your best option is to buy a set and have them fitted to the snows you'll be using. You don't need recoding the way Porsche does it for example. The car automatically picks them up.

AFAIK there is no way to permanently defeat the TPMS warning - you can only clear the message from the center dipslay, but the yellow warning stays on the entire time.