Hi everyone, thanks for looking and I hope someone has an answer for me. I did a search but I didn't find anything that matched my question so apologies if this has been hashed out before.

I picked up a set of John Cooper Works Wheels with run flat tires that were previously on a 2008 Clubman. I put them on Saturday and when I pulled out of the garage the TPMS light was on so I went through the trip computer and reset them and drove on my merry way. I stopped for about 10 minutes at the grocery store and when I came back out the light came on again. So I reset again and drove for about 25 mins and the light stayed off. Sunday we got a bunch of snow so the car sat until Tuesday morning in the garage. When I got in the TPMS light was on again and no matter how many times I reset it I kept getting the warning. So I checked the tire pressures and all four were fine.

I had thought that since the wheels hadn't been used in a couple of months the batteries may have gone dead, I was thinking that they might charge by using the motion of the wheels but I was reading on wikipedia about TPMS systems and it seems most have a battery that is designed to last for 7-10 years. If that is the case I don't think that the batteries have gone completely dead in less than 3 years, and they did work for a while on Saturday when I drove for a longer period(55 degree day). It has been pretty cold here for the last few days(it was 2 degrees when I came home so maybe the batteries are not working well in the cold?

Any ideas on what to do? Do I need to take the wheels to a shop and have them unmount the tires and swap the batteries out? Or do I maybe just have one bad sensor out of the four? Thanks in advance.

 

Well it could be your year car has a different setup (ie frequency of transmission to the sensors). Also, dumb I know but have you check the pressures of all the new tires to be within a pound or two of each other?

What year is your car?

 

yup supposedly '07-'09 are different than '10+

 

The Mini service rep told me they changed in the middle of 09, the wheels are from an 08 clubman and mine is an 08 Cooper S, the guy I bought them from never had an issue. I did not check to make sure they are all within a pound of each other, I didnt have a proper pressure gauge with me and had to go off the one on the air pump but they are all at 30PSI. I will check those first. Might also be that there has been a lot of snow so when I reset I haven't been able to get up to speed quickly and it seems that the light comes back on quickly. I will let you know what I find. Thanks for the quick responses.

 

The 30 PSi might be your issue. It sounds very low for a high performance tire. The run flats on my 2010 require 38 psi and even many performance non-run flats will require close to 34~36 psi. Check what's listed on your sidewall and on the door sticker.

 

30 is cutting it.

I always ran 32 even though the door says 38... screw that rock-solidness lol

Shouldnt matter about getting to speed quickly... they seem to take as long as they need to to get a reading.

Theyre probably not all the same PSI, like stated above.

 

Find a shop with the tool to reprogram and reinitialize the sensors to your car. They should take. I will be doing that in the spring. I have access to the tool, so I did this when I replaced a tire pressure sensor the other day.

 

My TPMS warning light came on, I checked the tire pressure, they were all exactly 30 psi. I aired the tires up to 38 psi, as recommended by the driver's side door sticker, reset the TPMS, following the driver's manual instructions. The warning light went away and hasn't returned. I haven't noticed a difference in the ride comfort.

Dave

 

which means, the 2010's. I know, having gone thru this with one of the Mini enthusiast web sites where I bought OEM sensors for a ereplacement set of wheels. They now know the cutover to the new part number STARTS in 9/09 rather than ends in 9/09. RealOEM will leave you guessing a bit too if you look at the parts listing.

Old part number sensors on a 2010 will turn the TPMS light on pronto; new part number sensors cured it immediately. For reference, I was using the Beru OEM equivalent sensor, and on the 2010+'s it is the "012" Beru version.

 

Thanks everyone for your feedback, I really love the friendly vibe of this forum.

So I learned one new thing and was reminded of two others.

I was reminded about checking the simple things first and that gas station air compressor gauges are wildly inaccurate. The gas station gauge said all four were at least 30 PSI and some 32PSI. But when I put a real gauge on them I had one that was 25 and all the rest were under 30. So I fired up the compressor and put 35 in all of them and went for a drive, better handling, same smooth ride and NO TPMS light!

So sorry for the false alarm when the TPMS was reporting the right thing all along. I think the longer drives where the light would stay off was because the tire was able to heat up and raise the pressure back up to an acceptable level. Once I parked it and the tires cooled down then the pressure dropped again, along with the cold weather we had.

But I did get a scare, after I filled the lowest tire I could hear air escaping, I checked the valve, valve stem and even started spraying some water to find the leak. Knowing the tires are 18" pirelli run flats at $260 a piece I was not happy to have a leak but found that the air was escaping out of tire fill valve on the compressor and not my tire. Man what a relief that was.

Once again thanks to everyone for the help and letting me know that the correct pressure is 38 and not 33 like the sticker in the door says(that is for the stock 16" wheels that came with the car).

 

glad it was simple. lesson learned