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[bavarianx]

Originally Posted by gildagjg

Woke up this morning with a flat rear tire so I brought the tire to a local shop and had it replaced. Mounted the tire back on the car now Im getting TPMS Malfunction then TPMS Inactive message.Did the reset in the idrive.. nothing happens just keep saying resetting for about 5 minutes. I went back to the tire shop they scan my tires and say all is working that its a faulty message and that i have a pound to much in the two front tires. He adjusts it for me and then the front left sensor go inactive on his screen. He said its bc of the pound over the allowed and that I have metal air caps instead of plastic. I find this very strange since everything was working fine until i replaced the flat rear tire. These sensors are about 14 months old can they go bad that fast or should I give it a few days and see if it reset before replacing them?

The valve cap does not make a difference as long as its an OE sensor.

[faz]

Hi everyone,

I have an 07 328i that is giving me a 'tire pressure malfunction'. The system doesn't even want to reset. When I attempt to reset, it takes a long time and it comes up with tire pressure malfunction message.

I have taken it to an independent local shop which has BMW diagnostics equipment and they say the fault code stored was for the rear-passenger wheel, but when they try to reset it, it gives another error (rcds or something like that). They seem to think it is some issue between the receiver (in the wheel well) or the controller unit.

From reading the above posts (thank you all for posting), I am suspecting that it might just be the sensor in the wheel, but I don't know if the sensor in the wheel is bad, whether it gives a 'malfunction' error like mine is giving, or whether it will be a different type of error like a low tire pressure error that just won't go away?

I have told the indep shop to stop working on it as I was not getting a warm fuzzy feeling about their whole approach. I will be taking the car to the America's tire to see if their tool can show a problem with the TPMS in that wheel.


Any info/help will be greatly appreciated.




EDIT:


Took the car to America's tire. They used the diagnostic tool 'wheelright tech400 plus' which they simply held next to the tire (at valve location) and found that TPMS was not sending any signals out. They had the Beru version of the TPMS in stock (identical to the BMW sensor) and TPMS and a new valve cost me about $83 installed. Tire pressure was reset (never got the malfunction message anymore) and all is good.

The indep shop also came through in that they didn't charge me anything. Their confusion came from the fact that they expected to see at least the other 3 tires show up as ok, but it seems like when one pressure monitor is totally dead (like mine was), the system goes into this malfunction / unavailable mode. I am just glad I didn't let them tear into the sensor in the wheel well and control system as they were intending to.

Hope this helps someone out there.

[hawaiianeze]

I had this a day ago after installing a new set of wheels, the reason for the inactive sign was that the tpms was from a 2010+ and I have an 08
other reasons for this problem is that you don't have tpms at all or that one of them is not responding correctly and you can bring it into bmw and should be covered under warranty if you still have it

[TC_e90]

Have the same issue for past few months and it just pops up randomly after i reset TPMS between 1-3 weeks. When i took car to dealership under warranty they said all sensors ok, put air and just reset it and it popped up again 2 weeks later.
should i have tire place check it instead of dealership??

[Frenk]

Anybody else here changed their battery of TPMS ?

[bavarianx]

noticed you are in Canada, if your car is Canadian spec, there is no TPMS, pressure is read from the ABS.

Originally Posted by Frenk

Anybody else here changed their battery of TPMS ?

[Frenk]

Originally Posted by bavarianx

noticed you are in Canada, if your car is Canadian spec, there is no TPMS, pressure is read from the ABS.

Thanks, its a US car actually

[BMSE92_Harry]

Does anyone know if the TPMS battery can be replaced or do you have a replace the TPMS sensor when it goes dead?

Also, we don't have America's tire over here in Florida, what other tire place can perform check that has the appropriate tools? Thanks.

[techwhiz]

Originally Posted by Harrychiu012

Does anyone know if the TPMS battery can be replaced or do you have a replace the TPMS sensor when it goes dead?

Also, we don't have America's tire over here in Florida, what other tire place can perform check that has the appropriate tools? Thanks.

Battery replacement is not possible.
Any tire store should have a scan tool. They put it next to the wheel to see if the sensor is transmitting.

[J. Dub]

Mine does this when I exceed 89 mph... Anyone else?

[BMSE92_Harry]

89?!
No, either it works, or it doesnt.

[catcher22]

This just started happening to me a couple weeks back after putting my summer tires on. I made sure the tires are properly inflated, but the TPMS Inactive light still randomly comes on.

Reading through this entire thread, the only solutions suggested are to check/replace the TPMS batteries, the TPMS sensors, or to replace the entire defective TPMS module (or maybe all of them since they'll all probably go bad around the same time). Not too bad since they're not expensive parts, and as long as it's not another oil leak or coolant issue I'm okay. After all, my TPMS had been going strong since March 2008 on DC/MD/VA roads. Not bad.

Will report back in a week or so with the real solution.

[biosundr]

Catcher22:

I was wondering if you had an update on this. I'm getting the same issue on my 2009 and was wondering if the whole module needed to be replaced.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by catcher22

This just started happening to me a couple weeks back after putting my summer tires on. I made sure the tires are properly inflated, but the TPMS Inactive light still randomly comes on.

Reading through this entire thread, the only solutions suggested are to check/replace the TPMS batteries, the TPMS sensors, or to replace the entire defective TPMS module (or maybe all of them since they'll all probably go bad around the same time). Not too bad since they're not expensive parts, and as long as it's not another oil leak or coolant issue I'm okay. After all, my TPMS had been going strong since March 2008 on DC/MD/VA roads. Not bad.

Will report back in a week or so with the real solution.

[JasW]

F- me with a knife, this just started happening to me too. I only have 30K on my 2013 IS, and changed a full set of tires a couple of months ago.

Originally Posted by catcher22

Will report back in a week or so with the real solution.

Any luck with finding it?

I'm under warranty, but as someone said upthread, this is just the sort of intermittent problem that will result in being told "don't see anything wrong" if you bring it into the dealer.

[johanh13]

Originally Posted by nodabs

My '07 335I has started indicating the TPMS is 'Inactive'. I can reset it but within a short period it will fail again. I suspect that either a wheel sensor is bad or there is a problem with the antennas in the car. Is there a way to test the wheel sensors to find if one of them has failed. Oh, yes! I'm out of warranty. I'm running the oem wheels and the sensors that came in the wheels.

So... I just replaced my wheels and tires and TPMS, all brand new. I double-checked that I ordered the right parts, and I have decreased the air pressure to the right pressure. I can select reset, and then start driving and after about 5 minutes it goes INACTIVE. I have reset it at least 7 times in two days with the same result. Any ideas?

[drunkenmagnum]

Has anyone checked their RDC to see if that was the issue?

[kpanasy]

What is the brand name for the shop tool for the TPMS? I need one for my 2010 BMW X5M

[Ur3ss]

I'm having this issue also. Mine also seems to happen on especially cold days. Will try to get my battery levels checked soon. I also had new tires installed last week, this started happening after the new tires.

[techwhiz]

Originally Posted by Ur3ss

I'm having this issue also. Mine also seems to happen on especially cold days. Will try to get my battery levels checked soon. I also had new tires installed last week, this started happening after the new tires.

Bad sensor/s.
Mine would do the same thing on cold days.

[Krash42]

Hopped on to this thread hoping to find some answers to my TPMS issue.
Had a tire replaced at a local shop and they “discovered” that the sensor was defective. After a couple of false starts, finally got a new sensor installed. But they were not able to activate the TPMS system again, so have to endure the inactive state for now.
Have tried multiple resets, and even tried a static reset using INPA. But no luck.
Just ordered the Autel TPMS TS401 scanner from Amazon. Hopefully that will help in the diagnoses.

[Krash42]

The Autel TS401 tool arrived today. Unfortunately, it’s a very wet day, thanks to the now downgraded hurricane Florence.
Flipped through the manual, then tested the wheels. It shows the suspect LF wheel as not communicating. It should be a 433mhz sensor, but shows nothing.
Gave up for now due to the pouring rain, but will try a few tricks to activate the sensor, since it’s the new one the local shop installed.

[LMB335IS]

Originally Posted by Krash42

Hopped on to this thread hoping to find some answers to my TPMS issue.
Had a tire replaced at a local shop and they “discovered” that the sensor was defective. After a couple of false starts, finally got a new sensor installed. But they were not able to activate the TPMS system again, so have to endure the inactive state for now.
Have tried multiple resets, and even tried a static reset using INPA. But no luck.
Just ordered the Autel TPMS TS401 scanner from Amazon. Hopefully that will help in the diagnoses.

My first thought is they used the wrong sensor maybe. BMW changed the TPMS protocol in late 2010, same frequency, but they're not interchangeable.

You should be able to reinitialize the system yourself through Idrive or the BC if the parts are correct and working, no special tools needed.