dealer said tire pressure monitor going off all the time is normal (WTF?)

[bender]

i hate dealers. normal?

GM can't make a TPM system that works and the dealer says its normal. that makes sense.

[bender]

how about a TPMS that takes into account the climate so people don't have to constantly fill up their tires with air. eventually, people will have so many warnings that they will ignore the TPM and be in real trouble when they really have a flat tire.

[Viet Nam Vette]

Maybe the 09 H3 will have CTIS like the H1..

Neat Huh...???

[NEOCON1]

run 38-40 psi for highway driving no problems to date get 20 mpg with the auto and 4k+ trouble free miles to date . ran at 20 psi for the dunes in pismo aired up to 40 and was surprised it took about ten miles of driving to have tpm light go off . not as good as system on my c5 but nice to have . the system just takes a while to update . Also was surprised tpm's werent installed until after purchase on my vehicle

[Mark805]

Is everyone here talking abou the Low tire warning or Service TMP warning?

I just started getting a warning on my BCM stating I need to "SVC TPM" Its kind of annoying cause it'll come on and go off and random times.

[bender]

i just checked my tires and all of them read about 30 PSI with both the words "low tire pressure" on the cluster as well as the yellow warning light. i filled them to around 35 PSI and the warnings went away. its about 60 degrees out now. we'll see what happens tonight when it gets down to like 30-40 degrees.

[f5fstop]

Were the tires cold (vehicle not driven for about 3 hours) when you filled the air?
If the tires were cold when pressure was increased to 35 psi, and it is 60 degrees, and it drops to 30 degrees tonight, the tire pressure should reduce to 32 psi. I don't believe this should set off the system warning.
From what I have seen it appears to be around 30 psi and lower.
If the tires were warm, the cold tire pressure might be actually around 33 psi.
Either way, 30 psi is low for a tire that is supposed to be inflated to 35 psi when the tire is cold. It also appears the system is operating correctly, if you added air and the sensor warning went away.

It is normal to have to adjust air pressures during times when the ambient air temperatures either drop or increase.

[Grandman]

I think they have the system set a little to light .

Minimum save road preasure is 20 psi by law . well in our state any way . I realize it calls for 35 psi but letting them drop to say 27 or 28 psi before the warning came on would end the warm to cold air temp problem .

Mine sets in a heated garage so i dont have this issue unless i go to my cabin , then i do .

[hmrlvr]

Doubt if it's "normal" but mine seems to go off a few times a week??????

[f5fstop]

Does not fall under state law, in MI that is for those worthless safety inspections that they used to perform on the side of the road (do they still do this?).
TPMS falls under NHTSA ruling, it is a Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standard (FMVSS). It requires the "passenger cars, multipurpose passenger vehicles, trucks, and buses with a GVWR of 4,536 kilograms (10,000 pounds) or less, except those vehicles with dual wheels on an axle, to be equipped with a TPMS to alert the driver that one or more of the vehicle's tires are significantly under-inflated."

We can thank Ford for this ruling, with some blame on Bridgestone/Firestone, but test reports do show that when the left rear tires were purposly blown on SUVs a few years ago, only Fords rolled. In addition, Ford did recommend 4 psi under the tire manufacturers recommendation on some of their SUVs.

Although, I have to say the primary cause of most of the rollovers, were a combination of under-inflated tires, overloaded vehicles, and hot climtates. Most (not all) happened in the southern states on hot days, at sustained highway speeds. Majority of the vehicles were overloaded, and the tires that did not blow were underinflated, so it is easy to assume the one that was blown was also underinflated.
If people check their tire pressures as temps fluctuate, there is no problem. For those with a problem, the dealer should be able to fix if they can follow the diagnostics published by GM.
It is really a simple system, four sensors (required by law, but H3 has five), a receiver, and an idiot light (H3 also has the DIC). The DIC and idiot light are just that, dumb, so if something is wrong it has to be the BCM or a sensor(s).

[gc2488]

I saw the "LOW TIRE" display once,
on a cold morning very early after playing
basketball. I measured pressure right then
and saw about 30 psi on all 4 tires.
The LOW TIRE display went away after driving
a couple of minutes, without airing up the tires.

I have since aired them up to 35 psi;
I'll keep watching for the false sensor reading
again.

At what pressure threshold is the LOW TIRE
indication supposed to come on? I haven't
found this in the manual or seen it mentioned
here (but maybe I haven't been reading closely).

Thanks for the discussion!

[aggiehummer...er]

When it cools down...sorry, in Texas, it only cools down. When it gets cold your tire pressure will go down. That's physics. Add some air to your tires and you should be fine.

[f5fstop]

If there was a software glitch, why are so few having this problem that some dealers say they cannot fix. Even for the small number of actual H3 owners on this forum, it is a small number with problems. Investigate, many complaints started in the fall, when ambient temps start to drop.
There has been no software update for the sensors, so don't understand a software glitch.
Could there be some defective sensors? Sure, they are man-made. However, any dealer, if they do the diagnostics correctly can find the bad sensor and replace. System really only consists of the BCM and the sensors, the I/P just displays whatever the BCM signals.
If the salesman had four sensors in a bag, he was shortchanged, or you were. There are five sensors installed, the spare also has a sensor.
I can see many dealers after the fall having doubts on whether the customer is adjusting their air pressures correctly, since that is by no doubt, the major problem facing the dealers today, and they probably getting tired of it.

I have never heard of the air pressure sensors being installed at PDI. PDI does not pay for this service, and if four were installed, it sure would be flagged by WINS when the claim was submitted; especially four (still wondering where number five is).

The sensors on a Vette signal a different module than the BCM. The RCDLR module sends sensor information to the BCM which sends the information to the "intelligent" I/P cluster, which has a larger character display and costs many many times more than the I/P cluster on the H3. In addition, the Vette uses a more intelligent system since there is no spare, and runflats will look fully inflated even with zero air pressure in the tire.
So far, the only time mine have gone off is when there was a large drop in temp over night, and my tires were under the recommended pressure during the normal daytime ambient temps. After one or two miles the warning went off. They did what they were supposed to do, warm me that I had not checked my pressures since the temps started to drop.
Since then, no other warnings.

The major problems with dealers and the tire pressure monitoring systems on vehicles without a pressure reading at the tires:
TPM problems, and assumed problems.
1. Dealer attempts to reset the sensors, and can’t get them to reset. One of the biggest problems is the TPM tool has dead or low batteries so they fail to reset the sensors. Too many dealers then assume the sensors are bad, replace the sensor, then still can’t reprogram the sensor, so they tell the customer it is something that cannot be fixed, and GM will eventually release a bulletin. Well, GM has issued a statement to the dealers to check the batteries in the tools.
2. Tire pressure system sets off warning in the morning then goes off while driving; primarily on adventure series vehicles. For all vehicles, this is an indication the tire pressure(s) in one or more tires is incorrectly set. Remember, read the label on the front driver’s door sill molding. Make sure to set pressures on a cold tire (one not driven for three hours). In addition, due to the larger tires on the adventure series, the 33” tire has a higher volume of air, it will experience a larger drop in pressure due to cold weather.
3. Dealer says it is the I/P. So far every I/P cluster returned has been tested and no trouble is found. The I/P, in regard to the TPM is dumb, it is only used to display a message sent by the BCM. So replacing it has been shown to be worthless, and does not cure the problem. A waste of time for the dealer, and more importantly, a waste of time for the customer.

[NJH3]

Is it possible just to remove the tps from each wheel and not have the light stay on? Can I remove them and use my OBDII scanner to erase the code and let the light stay off?

[wannabeH3]

i took mine in for that same problem and have never had it since.. they can fix it

[HummerJim]

Since I inflated the tires another 3 psi in November, I have not had a single TPM warning, including some temperatures in December in the single digits. The one thing I had never checked until Fstop told me there was a monitor there, was the SPARE TIRE - and I'm 95% sure that was the culprit because it was down 6 psi!
Check the spare if your other four tires read normal, but in my case, I gave the TPM a bad wrap because it was functioning as it was designed and there was nothing wrong with the system. I still hate it when I let some air out to do a little mudding!

[hyperion78]

probably by putting air in the tire... :-P

[f5fstop]

<BLOCKQUOTE class="ip-ubbcode-quote"><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-title">quote:</div><div class="ip-ubbcode-quote-content">Originally posted by bender:
i drove it about 2 miles to the gas station as soon as i woke up this AM...so it sat about 12 hours overnight in the cold. they were at ~30 PSI after the quick 2 mile drive. </div></BLOCKQUOTE>
So, the actual cold pressure was probably at 28 or 29 psi.

[f5fstop]

Who do you think the law was designed for, the non-board member vehicle owners. People who never check their air pressures, the people who drive across the desert in the summer with their tires underinflated and suddenly see the world from upside down.

Mine have gone off once, and here in MI the temps have fluctuated from 60s and 70s during the day to high 20s at night. I really don't see what the problem is.

[TA8088]

Mine was doing the same thing as soon as I picked it up. I added air and it hasn't done it again except for one night when there was a huge temperature drop.