Low tire pressure indicator light always on

Ask the service department to check the technical info database.

You might try increasing the tire pressure in all the tires by about 5 psi. This has worked in other vehicles.

Jeff

Did you check the spare? My SO had the light come on for Her RAV4 and the problem was the spare. Once it was inflated to the proper pressure, the light went off.

Ed

I have inflated the tires to 35ppi and carefully inspected the spare pressure. Neither ploy works. Thanks for the input though.

Try this one, it might be of help.

Besides the tundrasolutions pay site that Ph@boy mentioned, you can subscribe to techinfo.toyota.com and for access to the factory service manuals and technical service bulletins. Techinfo.toyota.com is sponsored by Toyota.

A third free choice is to subscribe to

hosted by a Toyota Master Diagnostic Technician. You have to ask to join the free yahoo group, but toyota_mdt_tech provides top notch advice and is more current than me. Although I worked for Toyota Motor Sales for 15 years, it was a while ago, long before tire pressure monitors were invented. One more thing to try is to call Toyota's customer relations hot line at

1-800-331-4331 (I still remember it after all these years!) and see if they will open a file for you.

Good luck!

I registered free and pay nothing Ray. The only really major thing that the subscription allows is downloading files.

Wow, When the service department said "due to the spare" do they mean that low air pressure in the spare tire is tripping the light?

Dan

Yup.

to

hosted by a Toyota Master> Diagnostic Technician. You have to ask to join the free yahoo group, but> toyota_mdt_tech provides top notch advice and is more current than me.> Although I worked for Toyota Motor Sales for 15 years, it was a while ago,> long before tire pressure monitors were invented.>

Just for kicks, I tried the $10/day techinfo.toyota.com subscription. I was rather shocked at all the information available. Wiring schematics, very very detailed instructions on assembly, disassembly, diagnosing, etc... of everything. Tons of info. I'm not much of a car guy so it's hard to get to detailed with my descriptions but it told me how to remove the instrument panel which I was curious about and I read about the throttle body which I am interested in cleaning.

Just my .02.

Regards,

Steve

Ah, so the OP is looking at the wrong tire...

messagenews:oMednVezEJ5fX97anZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com...

messagenews:FEG0j.342$ snipped-for-privacy@newssvr17.news.prodigy.net...

messagenews: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com...

On my 2007 Camry Owners Manual, there's a reset switch for the TPMS under the glove box. I have a compact spare and it is not equipped with the TPS.

Basically, the Toyota web site has all of the information available to dealer techs.

I believe that vehicles with full-size spares will have a tire pressure sensor in the spare, while those with temporary spares will not, due to the different tire pressure required in a compact spare.

Thanks Ray I understand now, I was reading my manual yesterday and it also says TPMS equipped tires should not use those tire sealants like fix-a-flat as they would damage the sensors. Anyway, I doubt if the OP used them on a new tire most especially a spare tire. Maybe the spare tire is air filled and the rest are nitrogen filled =)

Pressure is pressure, so that should not be the cause of the OP's problem. It is possible that someone forgot to check the pressure in the spare, or the pressure in the spare was too high.

Tire pressure monitoring systems came out after I left the car business, but there are 2 basic types of systems. The indirect type uses the ABS speed sensors to detect individual wheel rotation speed. If a tire is grossly under-inflated, then the wheel with the low tire will turn at a different speed, and the speed differential triggers a warning light. The advantage to this system is that no extra hardware is required on the wheels or tires and it is relatively inexpensive to implement. The disadvantage is that it is not very accurate and requires a pretty big difference in tire pressure to trigger the warning, and if all 4 tires are equally low, then no warning light comes on.

The direct type uses an actual sensor mounted under the valve stem and uses a radio signal when pressure drops below the set threshold. The advantage is that this system is more accurate and gives earlier warning. The disadvantage is that they require special valve stems and need to be programmed.

My understanding is that TPMS systems give a warning if tire pressure drops below a certain threshold, so heating from driving should not be a problem.