F150 Tire Pressure Sensor Fault

I have a 2009 F150. The truck just turned 35,963 miles (i.e., bumper to bumper warranty is all but up). The truck is 15 months old. For at least the last 10 months, I keep getting a message that says "Tire Pressure Sensor Fault." When I get this fault, the tire pressure warning light blink about 18 times and then goes solid. It irritates the heck out of me. This is not the same as a low tire pressure warning. This is a warning that indicates there is a problem with a tire pressure snesor, but provides no indication of which sensor (at least to me). It is not a consistent problem. I can go weeks without seeing it. It can come on, stay on for a hundred miles and then go off. When I first saw the fault indication, I called the dealer. They told me to bring it in when the fault was indicated. Of course the fault was never "active" when I went anywhere near the dealer until yesterday. It finally was on when I arrived at the dealer. Of course it was Sunday, so the dealer was closed. I abandoned the truck at the over night drop off in hopes it would still be "bad" today. So far I have not heard anything. I am not hopeful.

Has anyone else had this sort of problem? My truck has the valve stem type sensors. I've had one flat fixed, and one tire replaced (with the OE tire originally mounted on the plain spare tire rim - the spare tie does not have a sensor). The sensor failure occured randomly before and after these tire changes.

I have a theory - As a part of typical dealer scamology, my truck had the tires filled with nitrogen. I actually watched the process. The hooked all four tires to a machine that sucked the tires flat and then pumped them up with nitrogen (well ~96% nitrogen instead of the usual

80% - what a SCAM). I think this was a horrible idea. I think there is a good chance that this stupidity damaged one or more sensors. I doubt they are designed to be exposed to a vacuum. How likely is it that the dealer damaged a sensor in an attempt to scam another $30 out of me for this nitrogen nonsense?

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White
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YOU PAID $30 FOR NITROGEN?!

Sorry dude, but they see suckers coming for miles.

1.) There is no reason to suck the air out, just remove the valve stems and let the air drain to atmospheric pressure. The few molecules of air that remain are not going to affect the $30 worth of nitrogen you bought.

2.) Nitrogen is a scam, almost as bad as the Nigerian lawyer that sent you details on how to collect your uncle's inheretance from the oil company after he drove off a cliff last weekend.

3.) There's no way to tell if sucking the air out of the tires did anything to the sensors, but if they did it at the stealership, it ought to be okay.
Reply to
Jeff Strickland

Ed... we do occasionally see tire pressure sensor failures (but I do have to state that the majority are cause by unknowning tirebusters).

A few things... first, as far as I can see, putting nitrogen in tires is a scam (as has been said). $30 for some pretty green valve caps is a lot of money and the shit we breath IS 76% nitrogen already. Add that, if you have a low tire, I doubt that you will drive on it to find somebody with 'nitrogen' - I would think that most anyone is going to opt for plain old air and continue their journey.

For the sensor concern... you can have the dealer or even a decent tire shop train the sensors - faulty sensors "usually" don't train. But neither can I say I have seen one go intermittent.

HTH

Reply to
Jim Warman

I kne the nitrogen was a scam. We agreed on a price and the nitrogen was jsut in their. I told them I didn't care aout it, but got it anyhow.

Well the tire pressure sensor fault was active when I dropped the truck off at the dealership on Sunday afternoon. The service writer called me yesterday (Monday) and said the light was off (I figured that was going to happen). And becasue the light was off, they couldn't figure out which sensor (if any) was bad. I told them to keep the truck and try some more. Probably they will jsut park it and call me today and say they couldn't find a problem. The temperature dropped from the 90's to the 60's between Sunday and Monday. I suspect the problem is heat related and there is no chance it will fail for them. BUT, I'll bet Wednesday when I drive the truck 140 miles, it will fail and I will be so mad I'll be tempted to ram the truck into the Ford dealership's service department and set it on fire. I am sure at leat one sensor is bad. Seems to me, they should replace all four sensors and be done with the problem. I blame Ford (not the dealer) for not having a better diagnostic strategy for this problem. I've searched on the internet and I am not the only person that has problems with intermittent sensor failures on Ford trucks.

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

Ignoring the nitrogen issues, you should have established a problem trail with the dealer, long before the warranty was up. Even if the dealer is unable to repair the problem because of lack of diagnostic tools, expertise, etc., establishing the problem trail protects your warranty and requires them (the dealer and Ford) to repair the problem.

Reply to
PeterD

That is why I finally left it at the dealer -just before the warranty was up. But do I really have a "warranty trail" if they come back with a claim of "no trouble found?"

Ed

Reply to
C. E. White

You should report the problem multiple times to establish your case that the problem existed prior to warranty expiration.

Reply to
PeterD

It's not a total scam. The tire pressure will remain more constant than if you use air, because of the water vapor in air. Thing is that if you use nitrogen, the difference between that and air is very little when it comes to real life performance unless you race the truck and exact tire pressure is critical, like it is for NASCAr vehicles. For the common truck and car, it hardly makes a difference.

While it's not a total scam, it is a waste of the energy needed to get rid of the oxygen and other gases in air (other than, of course, nitrogen).

Jeff

Reply to
dr_jeff

Nitrogen is a scam. Period.

The scam is diminished when nitrogen is put in for FREE. Period.

There is NO benefit to private automobiles to have tires filled with nitrogen. Mostly because 1.) we pay very little attention to our tires, and

2.) because we go to the gas station and fill our tires after we notice they are low. I suppose your argument is the benefit of nitrogen comes from the notion that we pay so little attention to our tires. But forstalling the need to refill tires from time to time is not worth the cost of the nitrogen, unless it's free.

As for NASCAR, and what they may or may not do -- there is very little comparison in the way they operate an automobile and how you and I operate an automobile. They can put solid gold into a tire if htey want, and find a way to justify it.

As a practical matter, mere mortals like you and I shouldn't care whether the tires are filled with air or nitrogen, and we CERTAINLY should not PAY for having nitrogen put in. If the tire company wants ot put in nitrogen and do it for free, there is certainly no reason to object. But if they come out and say, "we put in nitrogen, and it's gonna cost an extra dollar," then refuse the service because it's not worth a dollar. Indeed, at a dollar, it costs precisely a dollar more than it's worth.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

If a garage air system is adequately maintained, there should be little or no moisture in the air delivered to the end of the hose. If there is any possible danger of filling a tire with "wet" air, it will likely come from some of the conveninece store type air dispensers that compress the air "as you go".

Face it... how many people do you know that want moisture laden air passing through their expensive air powered tools?

Reply to
Jim Warman

Hopefully the dealer resolved the problem.

After telling me several times I needed to bring the truck in with the tire pressure sensor fault light on, it turns out they could resolve the problem without that being the case. When I dropped the truck off with 35,963 the light was on. Unfortunately when they checked the truck the next morning the tire pressure sensor failure light was off. This time instead of telling me there was nothing they could do, they did something. They retrained all the sensors and told me to drive the truck until the light came on again, and then bring it back. The light came on the next weekend. Of course by the time I dropped the truck off, the light was off. However, they could now magically tell which sensor had turned on the light. They claimed they couldn't do this before becasue I had rotated the tires and they didn't know which sensor was in which position. I explained to them that the tires had only been rotated once (front to rear, no cross), but I suppose they didn't have any faith in getting it right if the tires were not in the original position. I have concluded several things - 1) the truck does individually register the tire pressure sensors 2) there is a stored code when the tire pressure sensor light is illuminated, 3) if the dealership really wants to determine which sensor is bad, they don't need for the light to be on when you bring it in, they just have to do a little more work and have you make two trips to the dealership.

Everyone at the dealership was very professional, I just wish they had fixed it last year when the light first started coming on, instead of waiting until the warranty was all but up.

One funny aside - on the way home from the dealership I stopped to buy gas. As I was leaving the station, I noticed a small box in the passenger's seat. The technician had left the pressure sensor training/diagnostic tool in my truck. I returned it to the dealership, although I considered hanging on to it until the weekend in case the damn light came on again.

Ed

"C. E. White" wrote in message news:hss0u3$apk$ snipped-for-privacy@news.eternal-september.org...

Reply to
C. E. White

I woulda kept the scan tool for a few days. I would have given it back, eventually, but I'd have held onto it until I was comfortable that the light was not going to return. Maybe the next service, "Oh, by the way, your guy left this in my truck the last time I was here. Sorry, I shoulda brought it back sooner, but here it is."

Reply to
Jeff Strickland

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