tpms

[JIM1inWisconsin]

I purchased a set of mounted snow tires with sensors. Of course when put on my car the warning light appears. As I understand it the sensors are programed to the sellers car. Questions: Can the existing sensors be programed to my car? If so can almost any mechanic do this or do I need a dealer to do so? Do I need to again have another round of programing when the summer wheels go back on? If my only option is to get new sensors will cheap aftermarket ones work?

[DarthFader]

There are 2 different styles of sensors for the 1/3 series. I believe it switched around 2010. Had this issue on my 3 series when I sold my '09 for a '11. Had to get new sensors for the winter wheels.

The sensors from Tire Rack work great.

[champignon]

Originally Posted by JIM1inWisconsin

I purchased a set of mounted snow tires with sensors. Of course when put on my car the warning light appears. As I understand it the sensors are programmed to the sellers car. Questions: Can the existing sensors be programed to my car? If so can almost any mechanic do this or do I need a dealer to do so? Do I need to again have another round of programming when the summer wheels go back on? If my only option is to get new sensors will cheap aftermarket ones work?

No Mechanic is needed, you can do this yourself.

I am assuming that you have a USA spec car and not one that was imported across the border from Canada. In that case your car should have the most common TPMS system, where there are individual sensors in each tire and a receiving system/module in the car itself. Those of us with that setup, who have a separate set of snow tires mounted on rims, will have to deal with your situation twice a year, when the tires are swapped. I am among those people with my 2013 135i Coupe. It is irrelevant whether any given sensors have ever been programmed to anyone else's car.

The system in your car can only "remember" 4 sensors at a time, which means that every time you swap tires back and forth, that the 4 tires that were "remembered" before need to be expunged from the system, and the new 4 tires you are putting on the car need to have their sensor numbers put into the sensor memory of your car. Since the fellow sold you his 4 snow tires, and since he presumably put 4 other tires on there since cars don't work too well without wheels and tires, his car no longer remembers these snow tires anyway (which doesn't matter, but I mention it for completeness).

Getting back to your car, you need to go into the setup menu for the tire pressure management system. How you get in there will depend on whether your car has i-drive, and the year of the vehicle. The i-drive system itself evolved over the years so instructions for doing this from my vehicle may not work on yours. You could find this in your owners manual, or if you don't have an owner's manual, you can download one elsewhere on this 1 Addicts board. You will basically end up telling the TPMS system in your car to "reset" itself. You will then drive off and the system will reset and will memorize these 4 tires. You will need to repeat this process when you put your summer tires back on, and every tire swap in the future thereafter.

In the unlikely event that your car is not set up with the system using TPMS transmitter sensors in each wheel, you will still need to reset your TPMS system. IN that case your car will have the system, used in Canada and elsewhere in the world (and possibly on some USA BMWs, I don't know) that uses the ABS system counting tire rotations. You will need to air up your tires to the proper level and then do a reset, and the process will proceed, with the individual tire sensors being entirely irrelevant because your car, in that case, won't have the capacity to memorize the sensors, only the tire air levels (or more precisely "roundness").

In any event, you should check your tire pressures before doing a reset with either system.

Should be very straightforward and take you maybe 2 minutes to accomplish, whatever system is in your car.