Tire Pressure Monitoring System - Post-Winter Tires

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Zugzwang

Member
Joined
Apr 19, 2018
Messages
16
Apologies if I've duplicated another thread - I did my best to search this up.

Anyways, I'd be appreciative of any thoughts folks might care to share on my situation below.

I have a 2018 Leaf. Recently I had snow tires put on with new rims put on the vehicle. This was done at a local shop.

On the trip home, a low tire pressure warning light appeared on the dashboard. However, when I navigate to the TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System) I get a message that says the reading will be available when the car is in motion. I get the same message at any driving speed and can't get a numerical reading.

I have checked the tire pressures manually with a hand-held electronic tire pressure monitor and confirmed that the tires are quite close to the recommended 36 PSI. I've been pretty good about keeping them filled uniformly.

But still that error message remains. Am I right that my problem stems from the fact that the new rims do not have tire pressure sensors? Might there be a way to reset the TPMS to remove the error message? How big a deal is it to have the sensors added? Or is it the case that what I should have done was purchased specific rims from Nissan?

Many thanks for your thoughts!
 
You don't need Nissan rims, but you do need tire pressure sensors of the correct frequency - 433mhz for a 2018 Leaf. Not having them won't hurt, but you will have to live with that light.

You also should inflate the tires to 38-40psi. Nissan has always posted too low a pressure on the door sill sticker.
 
Thank you LeftieBiker!

I will take that advice and additionally inflate the tires.

I'm going to do more research as to whether its worth it to get 433 MHz sensors installed in the winter rims. In the meantime it sounds like I'm living with that warning light. Hopefully when the summer rims and tires go back on the sensors will kick in - or is it the case that they would need to be re-set?
 
I'm not sure about the reset when the tires are swapped again. The 2018+ Leaf is a different scenario, because LeafSpy supposedly can't pair the TPMS units with the car. EXCEPT... that I managed somehow to do it with mine last year. I have to try again this year, as I just got my Winter wheels mounted. I'm not getting a warning light now though, just no readings from the sensors.
 
Thanks again! I'll report my experience back when I learn more.

I've inflated the tires up to 38+ and I've still got the warning light, which I take to mean the TPMS has failed due to the lack of sensors in the wheels. (That doesn't quite match your experience though, so I've still got concerns).

Losing the dashboard TPMS reading is unfortunate, but would be livable. But the perpetual tire pressure warning light is probably not a good thing.
 
It's a bit complicated to setup, but you can clone your summer tires to programmable TPMS units. then the car doesn't know you swapped the tires. Some shops will do this or you can try yourself.

https://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=27&t=24701&p=507690&hilit=tpms+cloning#p507690
 
Wow - cloning might be beyond my paygrade, but I am glad to know there is such a solution.

(Somehow I missed that thread - many thanks BrockWI)

I am going to watch the video as well.

Thanks again to you both.
 
It was funny after I went through all of my research and got the pad and software to clone and cloned everything and then I couldn't get the wheel off to swap the actual TPMS I took it to a shop and the guy said they now have the stuff to do exactly what I did and they even used the same TPMS, I asked how much and it was the same price as I paid for everything. Had I known...

They do make a stand alone "tool" that can scan existing TPMS and clone them onto new programmable TPMS, but it was more expensive, but a LOT easier.

In the end I did the same thing to our Van so it was less expensive and if I ever have to swap bad TPMS's I can do it myself or on our next vehicle as well,
 
Related: we have winter tires on rims without sensors, and do not mind the light (or will put tape over it), but now the warning screen comes on whenever we start the car showing one tire as 36 PSI, left rear, even tho the car has been many miles with the winter tires. I will try putting the summer tires in the trunk, see if they can pick up the sensor? any other ideas? 2019 Leaf Plus S, driver screen starts up with that graphic of the 4 wheels and one showing in red as 36 PSI. We press OK and it goes away, till next start-up. Thanks!
 
They likely won't come on if just sitting in the trunk. Usually it is the spinning motion that wakes up the sensor, unless you hit a LOT of potholes that likely won't work :) My guess is the last pressure the car saw was 36 and that it is "stuck" with those alst numbers.
 
dmacarthur said:
Related: we have winter tires on rims without sensors, and do not mind the light (or will put tape over it), but now the warning screen comes on whenever we start the car showing one tire as 36 PSI, left rear, even tho the car has been many miles with the winter tires. I will try putting the summer tires in the trunk, see if they can pick up the sensor? any other ideas? 2019 Leaf Plus S, driver screen starts up with that graphic of the 4 wheels and one showing in red as 36 PSI. We press OK and it goes away, till next start-up. Thanks!

There may be something else wrong with the system. My 2019 shows dashes (--) instead of each pressure after turning the car on until speed gets high enough to cause sensors to start transmitting. The dashes will be replaced by pressures one at a time until all sensors are active.
 
Hi, I'm the OP of this thread and I just wanted to update my experience, in case it benefits anyone else:

When I finally had the winter tires taken off and the summer tires put back on, the sensors kicked right back in and the Tire Pressure Monitoring System began functioning normally. My error light went away. I was worried this would require some additional process and result in an additional charge at my garage. It did not.

One more reason to enjoy the summer, I guess!

Though I really should look further into the cloning suggestion above. I'm sure it's a superior solution. Thus far, I've just relied on manual tire pressure testing throughout the winter.

Thanks again for everyone's assistance and thoughts on this.
 
I know this is an old thread but I just re-registered my original rims with snow tires after having summer tires with non-functioning TPMS sensors on them for some time. I tried the re-learn TPMS protocol with LeafSpyPro with the tires at the recommended pressures but the status was stuck in IDLE. Then I noticed that I had DTC's for something like 'no TPMS signal from ** tire'. There was a code for each tire, 4 in all. So I cleared the DTC's and restarted the learn TPMS function with LSP and it worked! No more flat tire light, FINALLY.

I have since bought new TPMS sensors for my summer tires and had someone with an Autel tool register them to the car. When winter is over I'm hoping I can mount those tires, run the TPMS registration again with LSP and have it all work. We'll see.
 
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