How to Not Ruin Your TPMS Sensor with Tire Sealant and Other TPMS Tips

Whoo. Getting out early, got a half a day. It's a beautiful day. I got an appointment, but I think it's gonna go pretty quick. Oh my, no, what am I gonna do?

I know what I'm gonna do. My mother bought me this stuff at Christmas. I thought it was a joke, but I'm gonna use it. It's that foam stuff you put in your tire. This is awesome. I'm still going to make my appointment and maybe go to the beach.

Let me tell you something about this stuff, it's great for emergencies and it does work, but, boy, is it dangerous for tire changers, mechanics. When you go there and we break this tire down, please tell us that this is in the tire because under compression, it can be danger. Plus, don't be surprised if they tell you you need a TPMS sensor.

Let's see, read the directions. Never really used this stuff before. Shake the can, put the valve stem at 6:00. Yeah, we're not gonna do that. I wonder if it will do any damage to my TPMS sensor. I really don't care, I just want to get to where I'm going. Let's see if it works. Wow. Wish me luck. See you tomorrow.

So now it's the next day at work and I'm gonna have to break down my tire and find out why it went flat. By the way, if you care, I had a good time at my appointment and I enjoyed some of the sun.

Dude, don't forget, this thing can be explosive under pressure. So, of course, that didn't really happen. But, if it did, it could actually happen, shall I say. It does say it on the back of the can so that's why I say, please tell your technician or your tire guy when you say, hey, by the way, I had a flat, I did put that chemical in there. So be careful because it also I've got this on because it can make a mess when I take this tire off. Can't wait to find out what happened, why it went flat.

Oh, look at that. See the mess it makes. Can you imagine if I wasn't aware of that and I had on fairly good clothes? That's sticky stuff too. It's like a soup that fills in the hole so I've got to clean this out. If can't visually find a nail on the tread, I have to clean this tire completely out on the inside. I have to do it anyways if I'm going to keep it and reuse it.

Wow, look at that mess. So now you can see why this chemical and soup. It's good that it clogs the hole, but at the same time, it does damage to the TPMS sensor if you drive around with it too long. Hopefully, we didn't damage the sensor, but it will get in there. Nice hardcover. Hopefully, this doesn't have a hairline crack in it and it's still working because then this chemical's getting in on that circuit board.

So there are three different types of TPMS sensors. Now TPMS stands for Tire Pressure Monitoring System Sensor, I guess if you want to get into deep, but this one is a rubber valve stem and it is held on with a little Torx screw that you can just interchange the stem if you need to, if you do core damage. If this gets all messed up inside, you can change the stem. They do come that way.

Then you have the aluminum stem style, which I'm not a fan of because up here in lovely New England, which I do love, aluminum and salt, road sand does not mix. This will get corroded and break down and all that stops it here is a rubber seal. I'll take it apart so you get a better look if you've never seen one. You can get new seal kits, but you cannot get just an aluminum stem. Not to my knowledge, at least, because that usually is attached to that inside.

See, so that stem does not come out because it's attached with a little rivet there and it goes into that circuit board. So this stem seat right here, it's a rubber that comes and it comes with a new bolt to hold it down. You can get those pieces, but you can not get the aluminum stem with this.

So I've seen these corrode big time, get crushed, knocked flat. Can't put air in, can't get the stem out. You need a new sensor, unfortunately. I'm gonna clean this up, hopefully, and I keep a reading on the dash so I don't have a TPMS light flashing at me. So if you do have a TPMS light on and you think your tire is low, it doesn't hurt to just pull over and get in the parking lot and check for the tire depth and see if you think it's too low.

And don't forget just even if they're not accurate, they might only be 2 or 4 pounds off, but not 10 pounds. So then you can just check your gauge, 30 pounds. And if you don't know what your car calls for, that's easy, go right to the door jam. So over in the door jam of the driver's side, you'll see the tire size and the pressure that the factory recommends.

So to give you a quick little history on TPMS sensors, when they came about and all that jazz, it was 2007 around there. The federal government was like, oh, no, we need better fuel economy. And how do we do that? Tire pressure. Tire pressure does give you better gas mileage. Sometimes people overpressure the tires and they're just like skimming on the road. They're barely touching the tire and they think, oh, I get great gas mileage. But at the same time, science tells you you're spinning too fast and you're not making good contact and then low tire pressure drags everything, right?

So while I clean this up, it's federal law. Well, it is a law that all the manufacturers put TPMS in their cars now from 2007 and up. So as much as you don't like it, because I know I don't like it too much sometimes, it's not fun for everybody. It's not fun for the guys that work on it and the gals that work on cars because let's be straight when we're taking this tire apart, you have to make sure you have it on the opposite side of the breaking valve. You have to put the tire stick in at the same time. Make sure there's a whole calculation here that if I have you doing tires before these came out, your brain doesn't sometimes remember, and make sure it's cool. You're gonna crack these.

You crack them, they break, they're not cheap. I've seen them from $98 or $38 for a universal one, which doesn't program easily, all the way up to $250. So they're there for a reason. Legally, you're supposed to have them in the car.

You can put rubber stems in, but that light on that dash is gonna be on. It's not going to go out. It's not transmitting the signal so it's not gonna send it back to the main body control module, telling the tire pressure per tire. And they do help because, you know, let's be real, I get a lot of times, "I don't think my car tires have pressure and it look at it, look at it." And I'm like, oh, those are your front tires. So they're going to pull out a little bit because it does have the weight of an engine and the chassis is in the front, on our front wheel drive car, and the back is not as heavy so the tire doesn't have that little bow to it.

So with the sensors, it brings everybody down. They get a little bit educated about their car and they learn to pay attention to the dash, which is really nice.

Oh, and by the way, the aluminum ones also have a torque spec to them. So it's not just tight as tight, tight is better because this is obviously an aluminum stem and you don't want to crack it. If you over-tighten it, the sensor will break.

So that's pretty much it about TPMS sensors. Just so you do realize that they do have to get programmed. Some manufacturers don't make you reprogram. They're really nice. They calibrate themselves as they go down the road. That's my favorite way.

Sometimes like a Toyota or a Lexus, they actually have a button under the dash, but it tells you to key on, hit the button, drive for so many minutes, go a certain speed and then they recalibrate themselves.

But also some of them, I know, you have to get the number off the side of it, put it in a scanner and actually program it per wheel. Man, technology.

Well, hopefully, that video helped you out and you enjoyed it. I know that I can't wait to go home now. I got this tire finally fixed. What am I supposed to say? So if you're a subscriber, thank you. If you're not, please subscribe and don't forget to ring the bell. It turns on all your notifications and you won't miss a future video.