Ok so my wife went to an Autocross event with her R53. We put some extra pressure in the tires and she made about 6 passes. The next day I rotated the tires and dropped the pressures back down to 38psi. The day after that the Flashing Tire monitor light came on and it made a tone or beep. I should add that I did not reset the tire pressure monitor... I forgot. Owners manual says this is an irregularity with a tire on the car. I take it to my mechanic friend who runs the codes and it has about four information or lack of receiving information type codes and then the Steering Wheel Sensor. We are leaning towards the steering wheel sensor but I just want to be sure seeing as this is an expensive part. What do you guys think? After googling it seems like people usually have two lights or even three lights on when it's this sensor. Also not hearing any of the ticking or clicking sounds that people are talking about either. Any suggestions on what I could try to be absolutely sure? Thanks for the help!

 

I think the very first thing to do is to check & set the tire pressures to where you want them (38psi is pretty high, BTW) & then go through the TPMS reset procedure in the handbook.
My '02 R53 does this once in a great while for no good reason & all I do is drive with my finger on the reset button for about 5 minutes. Either way, it's not an instantaneous reset - it takes a while.

Mike P

 

ok sounds good i will try this first. You're right i looked at it wrong. Calls for 33psi. I'll try reseting it and go from there. Thanks!

 

just mentioning .....

ya'll do know that the TPMS system in a GEN1 (and very early GEN2) are ABS based?

a low tire is identified by a change in rotation speed ....

and rotation speed is picked up from the ABS sensor ......

and resetting the system sets it to 'what is happening now' wrt tire rotation speed ..... which may or may not identify a problem in the future .....

just sayin'

 

So what would you suggest? As of right now the only symptom is a blinking light. No problems with brakes, haven't tried locking it up, or anything with the suspension or handling of the car. The only lead is the codes that it popped up which where not recognizing the VIN and the ECU. Like it had the wrong ECU or possibly a tune my mechanic said and that is not the case. Also the steering wheel sensor but from everything i have gathered that seems to pop up 2-3 lights and it makes a clicking sound that I don't have. One thing that has changed is the tire pressure. I raised it to like 43 for the autocross. I did not reset the tire monitor. We ran the car and adjusted pressures accordingly. Once we got back the tires were in need of rotating so I did that and lower the pressure back down and once again did not set the tire monitor. Thank you for the help just trying to figure out what I should do now.

 

The tire pressure system on the 1st gens is pretty basic. Its tied into the abs system, the abs system works by using a simple magnetic sensor at each wheel to pick up on the hub turning. If the system senses any wheels turning at a drastically faster speed than any others it will apply brakes to that/those wheels.

The tire pressure system uses the same sensors but at a much slower speed. If a tire is low it will spin slightly faster than the rest, once the system registers this for a few miles the light clicks on to tell you something is uo with a tire.

This also disables the abs system.

Mine gave me the same steering angle warning as well. Just fix/set all tires to the same psi, follow directions in the owners manual to reset and go from there.

 

Ok so I set the tire pressures where they need to be and reset the tire monitor and drove the car about 5 miles. So far so good. So if the steering sensor was in fact the problem it should still be the problem and the light will come back on again I would assume. If not then all should be good. I feel it was the drastic raising and lowering of tire pressures combined with Autocross. Not resetting the monitor at any point.

 

If she gets real serious about solo, get her a set of steel wheels with competition grade tires. Every time you change them, be prepared for a rotation error signal as they will be of different diameter which will confuse the system. Just do a reset and motor on.