TPMS sensor Defeat

I run SCS wheels and larger tires. I have the TPMS light on and I’m wondering what others have done to”hack” it, or bypass?
- I know I can take the light out.
- I thought I read something about taking 4 sensors and putting them in a pressured pipe in the wheel well

 

I have seen the pipe trick used by people running aftermarket wheels, or multiple sets of wheels. Its just two caps and a short section of pipe. I would place the valve stem in the cap if it were me though. In the car world they just hide it somewhere out of the way in the cabin. Tpms is way out of my league, so no personal experience.

 

there's a way to get to the actual TPMS sensor wiring. It's directly behind the radio/glove compartment. You ground a wire and the TPMS light goes bye bye. It's on the forum here somewhere.

 

That looks like what I’ve seen before. I’ve never had tpms before so I’m wondering if you need 4 sensors in there, or if you can use fewer? If it comes down to buying 4 new sensors for this trick then I may just pull the light out. Haha

 

That’s good to know and might be an easy option as long as it can easily be undone (in case of resale). I’ll have to try and search for that.

 

It's been a few years since I did it to my '06 but I believe you ground out the pink wire. This is located behind the stereo as others have pointed out.

This will disable the tire pressure warning light from turning on.

 

Here's another thread that shows helpful pictures.

https://www.tundras.com/threads/tpms-bypass-shut-off-disable.52317/#post-3021339

 

I went with 5 Denso tpms sensors from rockauto and run my tires at 35psi no light

methods or 33 ko2s

 

I did the same. It wasn’t that expensive and not seeing the flashing light anymore is awesome. Getting alerted to low tires is also awesome. Knowing my sensors are good for another 15yrs or so is awesome too.

But before doing that, I had either one or two sensors with dead batteries, and I simply used a code reader (OBDLink MX+) to hook into the TPMS ECU, and had it “forget” the codes (or clear them or whatever), no more light. I wrote instructions around here somewhere.

 

I assume you know about the sensor in the spare?

 

I did not think about that, but makes perfect sense. I haven't ever had tpms before.

 

You’re not the first. Many never check its pressure.

 

I swapped wheels as soon as I got the truck and there weren't sensors in the old ones. But I'm sure if I got some new ones I would still have the light on and could see myself getting really aggravated and not knowing why. Haha.

 

You would unless the new sensors were programmed in properly*

Essentially, each TPMS sensor has a unique wireless ID it transmits data on. That ID # (typically in hexadecimal, IIRC) is printed on the box but can be read by specialty TPMS tools. The sensors are motion/centrifugal-force activated IIRC, so they don’t transmit constantly. This conserves battery. Batteries should last 10-15 years.

You have an on-board box/ECU specifically for TPMS that contains programmable slots for at least four, and up to five, sensor ID numbers. Those ID numbers are persistent, i.e. when the vehicle starts, the TPMS ECU starts listening for transmissions from the sensor IDs it had programmed. If it doesn’t hear anything from one or more programmed wireless ID within a period of time, the TPMS light starts flashing. If it hears all programmed sensors check-in, and none report a pressure greater than x% away from the normal programmed amount, the light stays off. If one or more report a too-low pressure, the light stays on solid.

That said, any time you change sensors, you need to do one of two things: (A) update the TPMS ECU with the new sensor IDs so it knows what new sensors to listen for and to forget the old ones, or (B) you need to use a special TPMS tool to clone the old IDs onto your new sensors, which is apparently a thing?

That said, it sounds like you don’t have the old sensors, except maybe on the spare. I would confirm if that’s true, if the spare has one. It should be obvious is the spare has a TPMS sensor, the shaft on them typically has some metal to it versus an all-rubber one. If it does, your TPMS ECU probably has 5 IDs programmed in it today, and only one is valid (for the spare). If you have a tool like the OBDLink MX+, you can figure out which ID is valid by checking which one of the five is reporting data/recognized, and jot that ID down for later. Likewise, check the current wheels to see if there are any sensors, and if so, maybe a tire store can scan those IDs and try to program them into the TPMS ECU. Might save a few bucks.

If not, when your new Denso sensors arrive, snap pics of the IDs on the box for your future reference and save somewhere for your records, they’ll be printed on the outside of the box. Tire store (or you) needs to install those into the rim and torque to spec, install the tire, and program the IDs into the TPMS ECU. You can technically do it on your own with the correct tool, or with Techstream. You may want to (or have the tire store) clear out all 5 old sensors and only program back in the new 4 sensors, that way you never get reports for the spare being low?

Anyway, that’s the gist of how it works unless I typo’d some shit.

In my case, the MX+ OBD dongle let me connect into the TPMS ECU network in the truck, and see the error reports “can’t find ID” or whatever, and ”delete” out the error codes for both tire sensors having issues, and my TPMS light stopped flashing. This may only work on 1st gen trucks, I dunno. YMMV. HMU if you need more info @Kimosabe

 

here's the post i used for the TPMS light delete. worked on my 2017. not too difficult other than contorting yourself in the passenger footwell