Low pressure tyre warning

[Rolfe]

Last night on my way home I suddenly got a low pressure tyre warning. When I called up the tyre pressure screen all the tyres were at 2.4 or 2.5 BAR, including the one that is supposedly low.

When I scanned the car with the app this morning, same thing. Low pressure warning but all tyres are showing normal pressure.

Do I believe the pressure readings and assume this is a false alarm? How do I clear the warning?

Bowfer mentioned having a similar problem last year but as I haven't seen a thread on this in five months I thought I'd start again.

 

[Tight Git]

Put a little bit of air in all of them and see what happens, I normally run mine at 2.6 bar.

I think they are very sensitive to pressure and you are probably right on the threshold and the reducing ambient temperature has just pushed it over the edge.

 

[WonkoTheSaneUK]

Had exactly the same last week, and agree with @Tight Git above.
I expect that if the app gave pressures in psi (37) instead of bar (2.5), any discrepancy would be a lot more noticable.

 

[Rolfe]

My Golf used to do this all the bloody time. Except it didn't tell me which tyre and the only way to check the pressures on the fly was to give them a kick.

The village garage used to check them for me and cancel the warning. (Sometimes they found an actual problem, mind you.) I'd be embarrassed to ask them now, because they're not EV specialists and might not know how to cancel the alert any more than I do.

I'll try a little bit of air in each one with my foot pump - which is of course calibrated in psi.

 

[WonkoTheSaneUK]

My Golf used to do this all the bloody time. Except it didn't tell me which tyre and the only way to check the pressures on the fly was to give them a kick.

The village garage used to check them for me and cancel the warning. (Sometimes they found an actual problem, mind you.) I'd be embarrassed to ask them now, because they're not EV specialists and might not know how to cancel the alert any more than I do.

I'll try a little bit of air in each one with my foot pump - which is of course calibrated in psi.

Note that you'll have to drive a couple of minutes before the sensors will register the new pressure readings.

 

[Tight Git]

My Golf used to do this all the bloody time. Except it didn't tell me which tyre and the only way to check the pressures on the fly was to give them a kick.

The village garage used to check them for me and cancel the warning. (Sometimes they found an actual problem, mind you.) I'd be embarrassed to ask them now, because they're not EV specialists and might not know how to cancel the alert any more than I do.

I'll try a little bit of air in each one with my foot pump - which is of course calibrated in psi.

No need to cancel the alert - it will re-set once you've driven half a mile or so.

The app should tell you which tyre is low on the messages or the colour on the display will be different (amber?)

 

[siteguru]

Sometimes it is better to let some air out (of all the tyres) then pump them all back up to spec pressure. This "exercises" the valves and TPMS and helps to stabilise things.

But as per above, the readings won't properly update until you've driven the car for about 1/2 a mile or so.

 

[Rolfe]

That's good to know. In the Golf there was a specific routine of button-pressing that had to be done to cancel the alert, which seemed to require arms the length of a gorilla's. If you didn't do that, it never went away.

I suspect it was the temperature. The nights have started to get chilly, and this happened about 11 pm. It was the same with the Golf, spring and autumn. Andrew at the garage said he always had a rash of people needing pressures checked and alerts cancelled when the seasons changed.

 

[Rolfe]

Thanks a lot chaps, that fixed it. There was no sign that any of the tyres had lost pressure, including the one the alert had flagged up. My foot pump actually has psi and BAR dual scales. I thought I'd brought all the tyres up to 2.5 which seems to be 38, but they're still reading 2.4 and 2.5 on the dashboard just as before. Still, they're cold.

I drove about a mile, and all the warnings cleared. This is far easier than the Golf, which wouldn't clear the warnings until you'd paid homage to it by performing the appropriate jujitsu.

I intend to ask the local garage to supply and fit new tyres appropriate to an upland Scottish winter in a couple of months, and after that it won't be quite so embarrassing if I have to ask them to check the pressures. But the foot pump (which I actually bought for my bicycle) seems to do the job fine.

I always worry about the air that seems to be lost when you disconnect the pump. How do people manage that, to know that your tyre is still at the pressure you pumped it to once you've pulled the valve connector off?

 

[Tight Git]

The amount of air lost when you disconnect is only in the tube to the valve and not in the tyre so doesn't affect anything.

I was using my bike track pump to keep it topped up when I had a slow puncture last winter. May also consider changing to cross climates or equivalent for this winter as I live in the North Yorkshire Moors.

 

[Rolfe]

This shows the advantage of having the tyre pressure readings in the car. I was kind of used to the Golf, with its temperature sensitivity and kerbed wheels, but even so, when it did that "ping!" and the TPS light came on my heart tended to sink. No idea whether this was a false alarm or not. No idea which actual tyre either. All I could do was walk round the tyres kicking them and then drive on if nothing seemed amiss, then go to the garage and beg for a tyre check.

With the MG4 my heart sank as usual, compounded by the fact that I was on a twisty bit of road and the radio was playing something incorporating a strange rhythmic sound that could have been an errant wheel catching on something. But I just switched to the tyre pressure readout, saw that all the pressures were actually normal, and carried on driving.

All fixed now.

 

[Koomi]

I had a warning on Sunday (early hours so still chilly), and like others, switched the display to show the tyre pressures.
The one that was complaining was .1 lower than the other corners, and stayed there for the entire hour journey, so didn't worry.

At the end of the day when driving home, the car started with the warning showing, but after driving for a little it cleared - so assume the tyre with the warning is just about on the limit, and when cold it takes it just under.

Will re-fill all 4 when I get a moment.

 

[GaryMG4]

Had the same problem this morning, one tyre low. OI think it was a colder night that dropped the pressure. I put some heat in the tyre F1 style, the readout showed them all the same but the warning stayed. Then about 20 minutes into my journey the warning went off and the tyres were the same pressure.

 

[Rolfe]

I saw the tyre that was supposed to be low flip from 2.4 to 2.5 while I was driving last night, which again reassured me there was nothing to worry about. I suspect if I'd just driven it a bit this morning the warning might have cleared anyway, but I'm picking up a friend this afternoon and it's embarrassing to have a car beeping warnings at you when you're carrying a passenger.

 

[peadarog]

This is happening to me quite a lot at the moment, even though all tyres seem fine. I may be imagining it, but it seems to be more frequent in wet weather than dry.

 

[tsedge]

This is happening to me quite a lot at the moment, even though all tyres seem fine. I may be imagining it, but it seems to be more frequent in wet weather than dry.

Maybe up the pressure a bit all round if you are on the cusp of the pressure warning all the time?

 

[peadarog]

Maybe up the pressure a bit all round if you are on the cusp of the pressure warning all the time?

Thanks, that's good thinking. I'll try adding a tiny bit more tomorrow.

 

[Deleted member 10041]

This is happening to me quite a lot at the moment, even though all tyres seem fine. I may be imagining it, but it seems to be more frequent in wet weather than dry.

We've had big swings in temps over the last week that can have an impact on the system

 

[GameZone]

I believe this error also will cancel charging when it happens.

 

[peadarog]

I believe this error also will cancel charging when it happens.

Do you mean it will stop charging from happening? Or prevent it from starting?