Drive without TPMS? You could lose your car

[Tonymustang302]

Im still not understanding what this has to do with tpms…..i drive my 21 gt500 with rear beadlock non tpms wheels to car shows and track all the time……

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[Hack]

Interesting timing with this thread. I have a nail in a tire right now. It's causing a slow leak and once a week I've been filling it up because the pressure gets down to 25 psi and the alarm goes off. I tried to get it fixed around here and they all want to sell new tires. They say they'll fix your tire, but no they really won't.

I'll repair it this weekend.

 

[tq309]

Im still not understanding what this has to do with tpms…..i drive my 21 gt500 with rear beadlock non tpms wheels to car shows and track all the time……

Same here... My car lives on billet specialties big and littles. I drive it everywhere like that. I also check my tire pressure often.
Sorry to the OP for the loss of the car. Glad everyone walked away. Keep an eye on those Audi tires!!

 

[Rickycardo]

I grew up driving in the 70s on bias ply tires. You learned the feeling of a tire going down.

 

[LSchicago]

We drove many decades without TPMS sensors. It's not that big of a deal if you keep an eye on your pressures. I've had blowouts. Never caused me to wreck. BTW, I didn't watch the click bait style video posted.

 

[Garfy]

This was caused by pure laziness. now days we need to have TPS sensors to tell us the pressure. we need to have GPS to tell us where to go. we need traction control to control us. all these may be nice to have but if you rely on them to the point that you total your car over not checking your air pressure then you're driving the wrong car

True. Not only my GT but my Hondas as well, I manually check pressures every few weeks. I forgot on my daughter's car just over a month and found all 4 tires at 26 psi but TPMS light never came on; factory spec is 33 psi so that's a 7 psi loss yet no TPMS light. I suspect it would've come on at 25 or 24 psi but that's still bad. If you check your tires regularly, you may find only 2-3 psi loss so you can bring them up to spec. Running at 6-7 psi down will affect tire wear which is why I try to check them regularly.

 

[Garfy]

Interesting timing with this thread. I have a nail in a tire right now. It's causing a slow leak and once a week I've been filling it up because the pressure gets down to 25 psi and the alarm goes off. I tried to get it fixed around here and they all want to sell new tires. They say they'll fix your tire, but no they really won't.

I'll repair it this weekend.

I think the industry standard on radial tires is that if the puncture in the tread is within 1" of the sidewall, it's considered "unrepairable" and they sell you a new tire.

 

[mavisky]

Im still not understanding what this has to do with tpms…..i drive my 21 gt500 with rear beadlock non tpms wheels to car shows and track all the time……

The only thing TPMS has to do with this is the fact that mid-drive OP's car suffered a loss of pressure that the TPMS would have alerted him to. Without the TPMS he would have had to sense it through feedback of the vehicle while driving. It's simply another tool to keep your eye on the vehicle.

I've been saved by TPMS on multiple occasions when it's alerted me to slow leaks I was able to plug on the side of the road. Last year I made a road trip 700 miles away in my Lexus. Checked all my pressures and fluids before I left, but with a tank that can go almost 400 miles I'm not stopping every 30 minutes on my trip to re-check pressures. 300 miles into the drive I got an alert and pulled over at the next exit. One of my tires was down from 32 to 16 psi. Used a set of pliers I kept in the car to pull the screw out of the tire, used a diy plug kit, and then aired up and continued on the 400 mile drive to my destination. 3 days later I drove back home on the same tire and it's still on the car now over 10,000 miles later. The car drove fine as I was only driving straight down the highway, but had the pressure gotten much lower I could have had a delamination like OP did. Instead it was a mild inconvenience that slowed me down about 30 minutes total. Finding a 275/30-20 in the middle of nowhere Kentucky isn't the easiest thing to do and could have screwed up most of my trip.

 

[Hack]

I think the industry standard on radial tires is that if the puncture in the tread is within 1" of the sidewall, it's considered "unrepairable" and they sell you a new tire.

This puncture is closer to 1.5" from the sidewall. My plug repair is holding so far, but I'm nervous about it. I'm probably going to buy new tires after all. It's just not worth the risk of something going wrong. The way I drive around corners I could end up off the road or something if the repair fails.

 

[Ant]

You aren’t going to get anything for this from the tire manufacturer. What happened to that tire was caused by driving on a tire with low air pressure for too long. I’ve seen this hundreds of times with my customers that come to my shop. Sucks it happened, but this is 100% on you.

 

[Ant]

Here is a picture of what happens to a sidewall of a tire that is driven on with low or no air pressure shortly before it comes apart like the ops did. When the pressure gets low enough, it has to support weight that it wasn't designed to at low or no pressure. The line that you see worn into the sidewall is from the lip of the wheel as it wears into the sidewall as it is cutting through the rubber, and then the reinforcing material in the sidewall. Driven on long enough this way, the rim literrally cuts through all that stuff and will cause the tire to come apart as we have seen in pics within this thread. So, yes it is possible, and if you drive daily with low enough pressure, you will blow through tires in this manner.

If you go to his first post and zoom in on the picture you can clearly see the ring around the tire. 100% on the driver. Not a tire manufacturer problem.

 

[Garfy]

This puncture is closer to 1.5" from the sidewall. My plug repair is holding so far, but I'm nervous about it. I'm probably going to buy new tires after all. It's just not worth the risk of something going wrong. The way I drive around corners I could end up off the road or something if the repair fails.

Yeah, the cost of a new tire is a lot cheaper than even the smallest body damage or scrape repair. The old style "rope" plug is not acceptable in steel belted radials; the preferred method is using a "patch plug" where the rubber plug part fuses or vulcanizes with the tire tread and the patch part is like the old round patches we used to use. It keeps water out of the steel belts without stretching/spreading the belt or tread carcass apart. But, if you drive the car hard and fast, it's a safer bet to replace the tire. After all, we never see NASCAR or NHRA guys patching a punctured tire.

 

[dsiggi]

Glad to hear everyone is ok! Like others have said, i continuously look at the TPMS screen (what I thought was a bit neurotically), but glad I do now!

 

[TundraOnKings]

True. Not only my GT but my Hondas as well, I manually check pressures every few weeks. I forgot on my daughter's car just over a month and found all 4 tires at 26 psi but TPMS light never came on; factory spec is 33 psi so that's a 7 psi loss yet no TPMS light. I suspect it would've come on at 25 or 24 psi but that's still bad. If you check your tires regularly, you may find only 2-3 psi loss so you can bring them up to spec. Running at 6-7 psi down will affect tire wear which is why I try to check them regularly.

If you purchased the car used, someone might have stuck all the sensors in the spare tire. It was the simple solution to disable or not worry about the TPMS light, normally when aftermarket wheels were purchased (was more common 10-15 years ago when TPMS came out).

In the off-road community, we used to do that all the time. When you put on new 35's - you just pop the old sensors out of the stock setup, tape them to the wheel barrel of the spare, and then you never have to worry about the TPMS light coming on again, as long as your spare has the correct PSI.
If you're off-road frequently, your PSI is always 12-25 depending on the trail (which triggers the light). The stupid TPMS light gets rather annoying. The off-road community (in general) is pretty good about checking pressures, and I've had more off-road rigs with bead-locks/no TPMS than I have rigs with TPMS.
But I've also blown a bead-lock (bolts rusted from the inside without me knowing) going 65mph headed to the trail on an old 2-lane highway. Thankfully I just steered the rig off to the side of the road and threw on the full-sized spare.

 

[Garfy]

If you purchased the car used, someone might have stuck all the sensors in the spare tire. It was the simple solution to disable or not worry about the TPMS light, normally when aftermarket wheels were purchased (was more common 10-15 years ago when TPMS came out).

In the off-road community, we used to do that all the time. When you put on new 35's - you just pop the old sensors out of the stock setup, tape them to the wheel barrel of the spare, and then you never have to worry about the TPMS light coming on again, as long as your spare has the correct PSI.
If you're off-road frequently, your PSI is always 12-25 depending on the trail (which triggers the light). The stupid TPMS light gets rather annoying. The off-road community (in general) is pretty good about checking pressures, and I've had more off-road rigs with bead-locks/no TPMS than I have rigs with TPMS.
But I've also blown a bead-lock (bolts rusted from the inside without me knowing) going 65mph headed to the trail on an old 2-lane highway. Thankfully I just steered the rig off to the side of the road and threw on the full-sized spare.

Yeah, TPMS was mandatory beginning in 2008 in all vehicles sold in the U.S. I'm not sure about sticking them all in the spare tire because most of them don't begin transmitting until the centrifugal force is at a certain point equivalent to the vehicle traveling at 20 mph or more. Of course I know Toyota ones will transmit if there's a drop in pressure whether or not the wheel is turning. I think most people just ignore the light on the dash instead of spending over $100 per wheel for parts and labor. I think the designed life was about 10 years though I've seen some last over 12 years and others failing in 8 years; guess it depends how much they drive because the more the sensor transmits data, the more the internal battery drains.

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