Embarrassing Story Time -- Adventures with TPMS

Originally Posted by jeearle

About a week ago I got in my Z and my TPMS light was on, no big deal. I didn't have a good tire pressure gauge, though, so I went by Autozone and picked up one like this:


I checked all the tires and they all read just over 35 lbs. Perfect.

At this point I do some research and find out that there have been some issues with TPMS lights triggering incorrectly and figured I had some issue. But everything I saw online was about new tire installation or the TPMS light triggering an error code. My tires haven't been changed recently and it was a solid light, no blinking. Color me confused.

More research and I still have no idea what the issue is. I did find something online about how to manually reset the sensor by cutting the shielding from a wire and using a paperclip to ground something, it seemed a little hinky so I didn't bother with it (thankfully). At this point I'm about to give up and just take it to the dealership. I hate doing that.

I go out there today during my lunch break to take it to the dealer, but decide to check tire pressure again (I should note at this point that I kept meaning to recheck them, but I like doing it in the morning when they're cold and kept forgetting). So I pull my gauge out of the glove box and...it's still reading 35 lbs.... See on this new gauge, you have to reset it after every pressurization because it's valved to hold air until you read it. Needless to say, I'm feeling like a pretty big dumbass at this point . So I recheck and my back left tire is reading just under 29 lbs. All better now.

Tl;dr got cocky and didn't read directions, almost looked like a fool in front of a service department instead of just me.

Anyway, thought somebody would enjoy that.