2009 Cobalt TPMS System Questions

[S.D. Ice Angular]

I recently bought (4) new tires at the popular Goodyear Dealer in OUR area they put Hankook tires on as we agreed to. The pricing was good the service time was acceptable.

THEN: The Problem kicks in “TPMS”.

20 miles into driving I get the “SVC Tire Monitor” read out on my dash.

I scroll through the “INFO” button and see that the “LR” and “LF” have double dash read outs as compared to the 33 and 34 PSI read outs for the other side. So OK I get home park it, get in the next morning and everything is perfect until 18.2 miles then the same “SVC Tire Monitor” comes out on the display. So I called the popular Goodyear Dealer and basically say WTH Man!!

He says bring it in we will look at it again, OK, I say so they claim they reset the pressures of the sensors again and I should be good to go.

Well:

10.8 Miles into it same thing, so they claim they have some factory rep in the area and could I bring it in again 9:00 AM the next morning. OK Again, as it turns out the rep of “EZ-sensor” is in town there with the local auto parts rep to test my car. He has his fancy reader and goes around each tire and claims the signals (batteries are all week). He resets them all and does it all again then it is determined that I replace all the sensors.

So we speak with the popular Goodyear Dealer service manager again and he says it will cost $78.00 a piece to do but they will install at no charge. At this point I threw a fit wanting to know how the heck all my sensors go bad once I get a new set of tires. ANSWER= Coincidence!!!

So I dickered them down to $60.00 a piece installed and we did it.

But how could all (3 out of 4) go bad the same time I get (4) new tires did I get set up and screwed or could this be ligit??

Could the popular Goodyear dealer have done something as they change tires knowing the rig is has a 122,000 miles on?

Is $60.00 a piece a decent price??

Sorry to Ramble, but somewhere I think I got screwed.

[Jeremy airjer W]

The battery life is expected to be 5 years/60k to 8 years 96k. You have put on almost 100k more than the average driver on your vehicle. The sensors are more active when you drive and go into a sleep state when you park the car.

My best explanation would be that the sensors could still transmit enough signal with your old tires so that there did not appear to be a problem. The new tires for a host of reasons further limited the. Signal of the sensors. I would bet if you had put the old tires back on the issue would have went away.

With that being said I have run into this scenerio a couple of times on higher mileage vehicles with TPMS. Mostly Chrysler and GM.

I'm pretty sure the sensors on your vehicle are rubber valve stem mounted. It is almost impossible to break them even if you are careless with the tire mounting. There is no way that I can think of that would limit there broadcast ability other than the battery getting weak.

Long story short I think the combination of the new tires and the mileage on the sensors was the problem.

[S.D. Ice Angular]

Thanks Airjer,

Never thought of the less tread issue,

These are the EZ-sensor 33000 model. They have a very small allen head screw that looks like holds the valve stem on.

[Jeremy airjer W]

I don't think tread is the issue. I do think the composition of the tire and the side wall construction would make the bigger difference.