About a year ago I had a low tire pressure pop up on the dash. I checked the tire pressure and all read good. I took the truck to the dealer and they told me they had to retrain the sensors. Had the same problem show up again, so I took it into the dealer today. My tire pressures were 65 in the front and 70 in the rear. The dealer told me all they had to do was air up the two rear tires to 80 pounds. I asked him at what point does the low pressure alarm come in? He told me when the pressure drops 8 pounds. Which would cause the alarm to come in at 72 pounds for the rear tires.
Question: Does this sound right? Are the sensors the same for the front and rear tires? If so, how does the tire know if it is in the front or back? Going by the dealers theory when the back tires are moved to the front and the pressure is dropped to 65 pounds wouldn't I get a low pressure alarm? I am not sure this sounds accurate.

 

Not sure what the threshold pressure is for the warning to pop up, 8 psi is probably right.

When the sensors are "trained" they get assigned a position in the pcm.

And yes, when tires are rotated and pressure is corrected for their new position, then the sensor has to either learn the new pressure/position or they have to be retrained.

 

Official Ford Owner Site | Schedule Vehicle Maintenance, Get Tips, Advice & Coupons is an official Ford website where Ford owners can register their vehicles and receive helpful information about their vehicles. Owners can obtain information for various aspects of their vehicle, to include the diesel engine supplement, warranty information, diesel maintenance tips and the owner's manual. They also publish revised manuals as new information becomes available.

The owner's manual does have the instructions and information pertaining to the TPMS. The process does not require any proprietary computer equipment so you may save some time in having to go to the dealership by learning the process of reseting the TPMS yourself. The TPMS training procedure begins on page 239 of the owner's manual for my model of F250. I am unsure if this link will work as it may be specific to a registered owner: http://www.fordservicecontent.com/Fo.../11f23og4e.pdf

I encourage all to look this site over. I've been using this site since I obtained my 2011 Ford F250 in April 2010 and I continue to find new helpful features.

 

True, The owner ford site's only cost registering with your vin and it has downloadable manuals, recalls, service history, etc... Kudo's to Ford for a nice site... still have my manuals from my 2002 Excursion I downloaded from there !

BUT, they didn't do as well with the type of logic system for the tpms that takes SO many steps to retrain... (But it's not all their fault, I mean if the gooberment didn't force tpms on all of us that are smart enough to check our own tire pressure....)

They should look at the system on the Audi/VW/Scoda vehicles... I just set my tires to what I wanted (novel concept) then pushed a button to tell the system - "record it as the new norm" and that was it

 

DRW=No tpms.

 

I don't re-train my TPMS every time I have the tires rotated. Pain in the a$$. So the alarm to me says that at least one of my tire pressures are low ... so I check them all.

 

IF I were going thru the retrain, I'd set them all low and not worry about it every time I rotate tires...
that's my plan - setting them all to 55 if possible

 

I set all mine to 65 psi, since I only run 80 in the rear when towing the 5th wheel.. that way I don't get the alarm. Only takes about 3-5 minutes to retrain the TPMS..

 

The retrain is only for position of the tire, not the PSI for each. The PSI is hard coded at 65/front, 80/rear, tripping the alarm is something like 8-10#'s below that. To change PSI requires a tuner, or having the dealer do it. Before I took delivery of my truck, i had the dealership reprogram the PSI to 55 on all 4 wheels. they made me sign some papers that I understand, and dont hold them liable. I run 65psi on all 4 wheels most of the time, and air up the rears when towing heavy.

 

No it isn't.. at least not on my '12


I've set mine for 65 at all positions using the method in the owner's manual and I've yet to have an alarm when running 60-65 in the rear.

 

Not sure what part you are disagreeing with. You cannot change the alarm setting PSI for the wheel. You can only say which wheel is in which position so that when you rotate your rear wheels to the front, you dont get low pressure alarm on the rear positions. I may be incorrect on how low they can go before the light comes on however.

Here is what the fine manual says:

Overview



To provide the vehicle’s load carrying capability, some vehicles require

different recommended tire pressures in the front tires as compared to

the rear tires. The tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) equipped on

these vehicles is designed to illuminate the low tire pressure warning

light at two different pressures; one for the front tires and one for the

rear tires.

Since tires need to be rotated to provide consistent performance and

maximum tire life, the tire pressure monitoring system needs to know

when the tires are rotated to determine which set of tires are on the

front and which are on the rear. With this information, the system can

detect and properly warn of low tire pressures.

 

Yes you can, I've been doing it ever since I bought the truck.. in mid '12


Dealer resets it every time I get the oil changed and I go home and reset it back to 65 psi..


Maybe it works on my truck because I have a dumb truck.. my warning isn't tire specific only that I have a low tire. You fellows with them smart trucks may vary..

 

Senix,

So my F350 Dually that I have on order will not be equipped with the TPMS! Reason? Too many tires I guess? I am a happy camper for that.

Skip

 

Not due to too many tires, due to not being required on vehicles over 10K GVWR.

 

Well mine is 11.5k gvwr and I have that dang tpms, thank you very much gooberment !!!