Should all cars and trucks have low tire pressure monitors regardless of cost?

Question

If you check your tire pressure regularly, would you still support raising the cost of cars to have this system in every car? Maybe one day you may be following a car that pulls over to check their tires when they otherwise wouldn't know it's low.

Very true trojan, I'm with you on that, but is it that they can't tell or just don't care?

Answer 1

US government mandated saftey equiptment. Sorry all cars reguardless of size will have check tire pressure light to drive mechanics nuts! If Ford Exploier customers kept those crummy tires filled with air Firestone said the tire would not come apart with weight on the roof and seven big passengers driver talking on a cell phone flying down the freeway at 80 miles an hour. Sure the driver can react to a blow out put down the phone and check your tires at least monthly find a low tire get it fixed. Look people we're stuck with TPMS so get used to checking your tires to keep the light off. And all it has to do is warn someone with seven people to get the tires filled up. If it actually saves lifes I am all for it.

Answer 2

I just purchased a new '07 Chrysler 300 that to my amazement has a low pressure warning system on it.

My wife got in it the other morning when the temperature had dipped down into the 40's and this little yellow light behind a picture of the cross-section of a tire came on. I drove it to the station to check the air and all but one were right on the dot according to the sticker on the door. The other one was 5 lbs under the correct pressure.

It states in the manual that with a temperature drop like we had that night, it could cause the sensor to come on.

Looking at the tire, you would not have guessed that it was low. It looked just like the other three tires.

I am not in favor of all the "gadgets" that are coming out on the new cars, but this one may have changed my mind regarding Low Pressure Warning Systems. I faithfully check pressures once a month on all my vehicles. I only had this thing for 3 weeks and figured things were ok.... proved me wrong.. :-} I'm going to keep an eye on that tire too... just in case.

Hope this helps...

Answer 3

I check my tire pressure and fluid levels whenever i bring my truck into the shop i work at, pretty much every other day (either jsut topping up windshield washer fluid, or doing an oil change, or jsut checking my tire pressure, and wheel nut torques). I find the TPMS systems actually unreliable and more of an annoyance then anything. I have this one customer, if the light turns on, she will come into the shop and have us check it out for her, we don't charge her for this, she is a good cliante, and she gives me a sub whenever I go over to her shop for lunch (she's the owner of a Subway by my shop). 99% of the time, she was parked in the shade and one wheel was in the sun, or vice versa. Amazingly, that is enough to set the sensors off. Out of all the cars I have seen with this system installed, only about 5-10% of them actually had a problem. Side note, I do believe it is 2009 that all vehicles must be equipted with TPMS, I do believe it was schedualed to be 2007 but was changed to a later date.

Answer 4

Too late. The Feds have already mandated that all new cars built after (I think it's 2008) must have some sort of tire pressure monitoring system installed. We had this system in company-owned 2007 Chevy Suburbans... Battery powered sensors attached to the inside of the tire's valve stem. Outrageously expensive to replace!

Answer 5

WHY,If you can't visibly see your tire is low then perhaps you shouldn't own a car. The cost of installing a device is not worth extra money costs, it is just another thing that can go wrong and could be more costly to fix in the end. The actual tread of the tire is more of a concern and causes blow outs and accidents.