Jeff Ostroff

I called my local Mercedes Dealer today for a parts quote and they told me the new TPMS Sensor part price is $150, for a stupid piece of plastic with a battery attached to the valve.

That seems way out of control compared to all the auto parts stores, like AutoZone for example who have Schrader for example for $50 or much less less. But I have been told by Tires Plus near me that on Mercedes they must use the Mercedes OEM genuine TPMS sensors because they can't program the others, or they won't be recognized by the car, etc. I saw a couple of forum posts here on MBWorld that people tried cheap knock offs, and got intermittent results, where car does not see the TPMS sensor.

This $150 price does not even include installation. So what's a guy to do?? This TPMS sensor BTW is for our other Mercedes, a 2013 C250 W204.

Am I really stuck buying the $150 one? this is for my daughters car, and failure is not an option, we cannot have a TPMS sensor that sometimes shows up on the screen and sometimes not, this has to be 100% right.

This all started after she keeps losing pressure after going on the highway for some period of time, after the car is parked, it loses tire pressure to 20 PSI sometimes down to 13 PSI, and now it keeps happening. Tire shops have all done water tank tests, they say tire is perfect, no leak We have gone through everything, tighten valve, replacing new rims even, now we determined the problem is a probably a leaking TPMS sensor.

KEY08

That is total Bull. Buy the cheap sensor with the same MHZ and call it a day. MB uses several manufacturers to build their TPMS sensors, including Schrader. I have Schrader units in my winter wheels and they are marked with the MB Star. I paid less than $150 for all 4 on Amazon. I have no current link so don't ask. Just buy them from Amazon or Ebay and tell the dealer to suck it.

kajtek1

I wonder what happen to oiriginal sensor? The 2008 sensors on the car I sold this year are still working.

belarus27

1 of my sensors went out on 2010 with original oem amg wheels ,i replaced with not oem , and kind of regret it... it shows a higher pressure by 1-2 psi , and whenever you add or remove air it takes a lot longer for it to read the accuratr pressure. Otherwise it works okay lol
Spend extra 10 or 20 bucks and get an oem. Or maybe a better brand one.. mine was chinese from ebay if im not mistaking

up_too_late

I bought a set of four from TireRack.com for $179 (~$45 each) and they work fine for a 2015 E350 wagon.

Jeff Ostroff

Here is the status update. Our back was against the wall because my daughter had to drive back across Florida early this evening. So we took her C250 to the local Mercedes dealership and they said it would be $159 for a diagnostic and hopefully applied to any TPMS sensor repair. They called back 2 hours later to say the problem was the TPMS and valve were not seated correctly and not torqued correctly. Looks like the tire shop from 2 weeks ago that moved the TPMS from the old rims to the new rims messed up, even though it drove fine for 2 weeks, and the inflation issues started back up again after she drove home to visit us the other day. Highway driving always seems to be the trigger.

So Mercedes told me today they torqued the valve/TPMS assembly down according to Mercedes OEM specs, and it is holding air for now. Mercedes only charged me $69 for the repair. we were in at 1:15 PM, and out by 4 PM. And here I was expecting to pay $159 for a new sensor, plus massive labor charges when luckily their diagnostics said I did not need a new sensor.

My daughter left at 5 PM and just notified us that she made it back across the state on the highway with no problems. We'll see in the morning if it still holds air, as that is the real test, after highway driving, will it still have air overnight.

Keeps your fingers crossed.

KEY08

Getting a good seal on those sensors is really important or they leak as you are experiencing