What is a tire pressure monitoring system?

A tire pressure monitoring system is a system that allows communication between your tires and an on-board computer in your car. What is being measured is the pressure in your tire. Under inflated tires are the cause of many traffic accidents, injuries, and deaths annually. The intention of the law is to prevent these accidents, injuries and deaths. Historically, the first vehicle that used this system was the 1986 Porsche 959. Systems such as these have been in use in many high high end vehicles, such as BMW, Porsche, Corvette or Mercedes, often in conjunction with run-flattires.  more

A tire pressure monitoring system or TPMS is an electronic system for monitoring the air pressure in a vehicle tire and automatically transmitting a warning to the driver in the event of an under or over inflated tire. These systems have been legislated to be progressively installed on all new passenger carrying US vehicles and a similar move is taking place worldwide. The majority of systems use Direct tire sensors which transmit real time tire pressure information to the driver of the vehicle either via either a dashboard display or a warning light. The sensors are physical pressure transducers which are attached to the back of the valve stem or are in a form which is banded to the wheel. The sensors are manufactured by International companies such as Schrader, Siemens, TRW, Pacific, Lear and others. There is no common technical standard for the sensors and the OE's and suppliers have generated a multitude of sensor designs. The sensors also transmit data such as their unique ...  more

A tire pressure monitoring system is used to alert the driver if one tire or a combination of tires is significantly low on pressure. All passenger cars, light trucks, SUVs, and buses that have a gross vehicle weight ratio of less than 10,000 pounds and manufactured on or after September 1st, 2007 are required by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to have a tire pressure monitoring system (except dual wheel axle type vehicles). Automotive manufacturers have had several years to phase in this technology, so your vehicle may have a tire pressure monitoring system already.  more