Tire pressure sensor broke! Common problem?

I was sitting in traffic yesterday, completely stopped, when all of a sudden, the tire pressure monitor went off. I was very confused as yesterday was a warmer than usual day, so it could not have been the cold weather. I turn down the radio and hear air coming out of a tire. When traffic began to move again, I try to move only to realize one of my tires was completely flat! I was in the left lane of a two lane highway, so I got over and pulled over to the nearest parking lot I found. I maybe drove 100 yards tops. I get out only to see the FR tire completely flat. I look at the valve, and it was broken. I threw on the spare (kind of a pain in the ass when you are in a suit), and drove to work for a meeting I had in the morning. I took it to my mechanic later on in the day and he said the tire pressure sensor broke off!

Has anybody ever had this problem before? It cost $90 for a new one, and since the tire got kind of chewed up from the short distance I drove, I bought a new tire to be on the safe side ($165, Hankook Ipike RW-11, winter tire). So with install, tax, and everything, I paid $326. I saved the onld tire as a spare. Once I started thinking about it, I was pretty lucky though. Imagine if this happened while I was driving on the highway at 80mph???

My mechanic said this was very common with these new tire pressure sensors, but it kind of scared me to be honest. I have not heard of this problem before, that is why I'm reaching out to see if it has occured to anyone else here.

Happened to me a month ago. Soon after I switched to winter tires I got the TPMS warning and when I went to fill up with air the TPMS valve broke off at the threads. Must have been partially damaged during the tire change. These things are expensive but I got the local shop to give me a generic one that is actually rubber rather than metal. They said it would be less likely to break.

They are pretty sensitive. You do have to exercise care when adding air, to ensure you push the air hose straight on and not at an angle. However, I have not heard of this being common.

The TPMS sensors do not check PSI many times a second. It does checking periodically like 15 secs or so to save battery power inside.
The sensors do not activate until the vehicle reaches certain speed (>15mph). Therefore, it consumes no power while the vehicle is parked.

If the tire pressure dropped very quickly or dropped while it was parked, by the time, the sensor informs you, the tire might be completely flat.
Then, when you move the vehicle to the shoulder, the sensor could be damaged. That is the way it is I guess.

Interesting and quite timely as I'm new to TPMS sensors. I'll be very careful if I need to add air. Thanks for the careful tips.

Can the valves be replaced with common tire pressure stems?

Keoni50

I was just in Auto Zone this morning. They had a section of "Slime" products. They have rubber TPMS replacement valves which have the metal tube insert that plugs into the TPMS sensor. Slime Rubber replacement valves are 2.99 + tax. You would bring them to a tire shop to dis-mount the tire(s) and replace the valve.
Now obviously its rubber and not a metal valve like the oem valves, but for 2.99 you can't go wrong. It includes a valve stem cap.
I also saw replacement needles/bulbs that fit inside the valve, they were like .50 cents. They also had chrome valve stem caps with silicone inserts and they packaging says "TPMS Safe." You can't use metal valve stem caps because it will corrode the aluminum valve stem. They have aluminum caps too, but the only worry I would have with that is water corroding up in there. Soft plastic caps are also good because the soft plastic threads create enough of a water barrier to keep water out.

I was pretty impressed with all the Slime parts they had in the store today. Basically it would be less than 5 bucks a tire for a rubber TPMS rebuild kit, which is alot less than 15 per tire that "Discount Tire" charges.

sjg said:

Happened to me a month ago. Soon after I switched to winter tires I got the TPMS warning and when I went to fill up with air the TPMS valve broke off at the threads. Must have been partially damaged during the tire change. These things are expensive but I got the local shop to give me a generic one that is actually rubber rather than metal. They said it would be less likely to break.

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A friend of mine told me that I should just get some steel rims for the winter tires so that I don't keep swapping the tires back and forth as it is not good for the tires. After this even, I think I'm just going to do that, then I can just swap them myself.

I just had the third tire sensor replaced on my 2009 Mazda 6. The previous two were replaced under warranty, this one was not. $153 to replace a faulty valve stem? I understand the tire sensor is suppose to make driving safer, but at what point do you say I am going to have an accident when one of these things blows. I have been "fortunate" enough the three times it happened I caught it before driving and destroying a tire. I hope next time it happens I am not on the highway going 100 kph! I argued with the service desk which finally said they would mention to the manager I was less than happy with Mazda. I will see if anyone follows up I guess! And yes my winter tires are on separate rims and I just ignore the low tire warnings until I put all season tires back on. I hear the government is making these types of devices mandatory, but I am now more concerned of a blow out due to the sensor/ valve stem failure than my tire being low on air. The only time the warnings have come on is when the valve stems failed, or my winter tires are on, other than that I do maintenance and check my tire pressure regularly and do not wait for the car to tell me something is wrong. When the next one goes I am removing all 4 of them

Mazda, Recall maybe or change manufacturer at least.... Safety?