Best Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems

Peter Tourin

2020 Unity RL, ex 2012 Unity MB
+1 NetDoc. If you didn't catch my post about tires - we bought a 2012 MB, flew from VT to NV to pick it up, and drove 30 hours east right after completing the purchase. We had our left rear outside tire shred late one night - the guy who came out and mounted a replacement tire found a leaking valve stem and guessed that the tire had gone soft, then self-destructed. Unfamiliar rig, late at night - I had no idea the tire had gone. I notice that there was more vibration in the wheel and through the chassis, but I wrote it off to changing road surface conditions I was amazed when I saw the tire next morning.

So - a Sunday spent calling around, getting no real help from AAA/RV or Good Sam, finding a tire, then a 24/7 tire service that could change it. And I'm glad that's as bad as it got! So I'd have to say I'm now a bit more interested in a good TPMS than when I started this trip, and I sure won't ever leave home without a tire gauge in my pocket!
 

Kozad

New member
We are new to this forum and are interested in a TPMS system for our new Unity. We have had a factory installed TPMS on our car and have been saved a number of times!

After doing a lot of research I found the following system: Tire Minder: http://www.minderresearch.com/tireminder-tpms-with-4-transmitters-and-a-hard-wired-signal-booster/

Videos and write up demonstrate a simple, easy to use and reasonably priced monitoring system.

Interesting.....

Craig & Jan
British Columbia, Canada
2014 U24MB on order for May 2014
 

llamadave

New member
Craig and Jan,
I recently chose the TST internal TPMS: http://www.tpms.com/TST_507_TPMS_INT6_INTERNAL_TPMS_SYSTEM_W_6_SENSO_p/tst.507tpmsint6.htm
These cost much more than an external one but the advantages are significant: They measure tire temperature well, they don't get knocked off or stolen which could cause a leak, and they do not make it difficult to add air. I am in the process of getting them installed and will report when I have some experience.

David
 

Kozad

New member
David

We will be anxious to hear your results and review on the system. The website information looks impressive; will be interesting to see how they install on the dual wheels and if the valve stems are long enough and accessible?

Will await your update....

Cheers

Craig & Jan
British Columbia, Canada
Unity 24MB on order for May
 

blue

2011 LTV Unity CB
I just installed the TireMinder TPMS referenced by Kozad in #22. Not difficult to set up. I don't plan to drive anywhere right now, so I guess I'll just see if there are any leaks. I can check the outside temperature too because the system also monitors tire temperature -- it is forecast to go well below freezing tonight.
 

israndy

2007 LTV Serenity
I got mine at Quartzite a couple of weeks ago too. Had to get valve extenders as the original ones were busted by the guys who put my new tires on. I am still getting the system set up as I burned out my tire pump in the process of setting up my sensors. Didn't notice I was running low until I put the first few sensors on. My B&D Air Station had been the cats pajamas, but apparently I was stressing it, using it on RV tires, and this time it finally seized and smoked. Thought I smelled something funny.

Otherwise so far the TPMS looks good, and I expect great things of it. Has the ability to also monitor my toad if I get more sensors.

-Randy
 

llamadave

New member
Time for a progress report. The short story is that the internal TPMS and valve stems I purchased from TST did not fit on 2012 Sprinter steel wheels. I had a short time to test them and the pressure and temperature monitoring and display console worked great. Now I am waiting for the correct parts.

Here is the long story. Anyone wanting an internal TPMS for a 2012 or later Sprinter might want to read this.

I chose the Truck Systems Technologies (TST) 507 internal TPMS for my dually Sprinter. As explained in an earlier post, an internal system is best because it reads accurate temperatures, is not easily damaged, cannot be stolen, and with new valve stems it is easy to add air. I told TST I had a 2012 dually 3500 Sprinter and needed 2-inch valve stems. I installed in a couple of hours the receiver and repeater myself at home before leaving on a 2-month trip to Florida. Weather was bad in Indiana so I waited and found a truck tire place, Neece Tire and Auto Service, in Tallahassee, which listed TPMS on their web site. We were not expecting any problems so we waited patiently for 6 hours (!) while they installed them. Some of this time the mechanic helped others move around very large truck tires. The service advisor did not mention any problems. Towards the end I ventured past the “No customers beyond this point” sign to see what the mechanic was doing. He was very upset and frustrated saying that on every tire he installed the components as provided, then it leaked so he had to take it apart and substitute different parts. The nut would not fit on the valve stem so he was putting on a smaller nut that was very hard to tighten. I asked him to set the pressures to the label on the door, 54 front and 61 rear. He finally said they were all done and we could leave now.

We were hungry and it was late so we paid the $160 bill ($25 per tire plus tax) and left. The pressures being reported in the monitor were all very high, about 75 psi (which is near the max cold pressure written on the tire), so after eating I checked the pressures with a pressure gauge and indeed they were that high. The tire pressure gauge that the mechanic at Neece Tire used must have been wrong??? So I lowered them to about 5 over the pressures on the label (the tires were warm). The pressure monitor worked perfectly. The high-pressure alarms went off before I lowered them and afterwards all six tires reported the same pressure as the pressure I set them to.

Then the nightmare started. On the way to our campsite about 30 miles away, some of the tires started losing air. The front right went down from 60 to 40 in a few hours, so I jacked up that tire for the night since I was sure it would be completely flat in the morning and I did not want to damage the tire and I wanted to be able to inflate it with the 12V pump that Mercedes provides with the van.

At this point we figured that the Neece mechanic put so much pressure in the tires because they did not leak at that pressure or because it would be longer before they went flat. His pressure gauge would not be off by 20 psi.

I called Mike at TST and explained what happened. He seemed surprised and suggested I call the valve expert Bill “Borg” (Falkenborg) in California. Bill sighed and said TST must not know about the changes in Sprinter wheels mid-way through the 2012 model year. He knew right away that the valve stems that TST provides would not work. The nut on the valve stem needs to be on the inside for these wheels since there is no room for it on the outside. We needed special valve stems that he has developed and sells for $140. I am sure there are lots of posts about his valve stems for Sprinter duallys on this forum. The stems are chrome and are different for the front, rear inside, and rear outside. You can reach them easily to add air and they should work fine with an internal TPMS. If you want to rotate tires you can do it only right to left, but he said that if tires are balanced and aligned properly they do not need to be rotated. If they cause trouble or leak, Borg Equipment and Supply will pay any additional installation or repair costs. Bill said that installation should cost $20 +/- 5 and there should be no problems.

I called back Mike at TST and explained what Bill Borg had said. Mike said he would call Bill and call me back. He did and his solution was that he would pay for Borg’s valve stems but would not pay for their shipping and for my $160 first try expense, nor would he pay for the installation of the new ones. I accepted that since I feel partly to blame for letting the Neece mechanic work for 6 hours without proactive investigation.

In the morning I added air with the pump (the MBz pump took about 15 minutes for the flat tire and needed to cool before the next one). Then we headed back to Neece Tire and Auto Service and asked for the person in charge. Mr. Neece was very defensive and after a few minutes that seemed an eternity I was able to get some words in to tell him that we now realize that the parts we provided from TST were not the right ones. But why did they install them anyway when they all leaked? He said that they did not leak when we left and the pressures were so high because the gauge was defective. I had no way to prove he was wrong, but later I found out he was wrong when we overheard the mechanic say to a foreman that they were indeed leaking after he finished installing them. Mr. Neece said that they would put back regular rubber valve stems, give us back all our parts, and charge us $15 per tire for that work. I explained that I would report all this on the forums and he didn’t care. In the end the service manager did not charge us for removing the TPMS, but a refund of the original $160 was out of the question. Not to mention our time of about 12 hours counting the drive back from our campsite.

So Bill Borg shipped the new valve stems to our next address where we would be in a week. The valve stems looked good so I took them to a Sears’s auto center for installation. The foreman at Sears and I could not figure out how to install them (no directions were included) so I called Bill Borg. He asked me some questions about my wheels, which have round holes, and said that I have a 2012.5 Sprinter and he had sent me the wrong parts. I told him I would wait until I got home in March, a few weeks from now, and he said he would send the correct ones and pay the postage.

You are probably wondering, as my wife is, why I am going through all this hell just to be able to monitor the tire pressures and temperatures. I still think this is an important safety system and will be worth the trouble when this is all over. After all, it is so important that our government has required TPMS in all new 4-wheel vehicles and may soon require in all trucks. As I said above, except the leaking problems, the TST internal 507 TPMS worked perfectly and I will not change my mind on my choice of this system.

David
 

Peter Tourin

2020 Unity RL, ex 2012 Unity MB
Well you're certainly going through a trial by fire! It'll be interesting to read the next installment - I hope it goes quicker and smoother than what's happened up to now!
 

jackfish

Active member
Best Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems? For me? Tire Man Dually Valve Stem Kit and regular checking tire pressures with a gauge.
 

israndy

2007 LTV Serenity
What are Duelly Valve Stems? There are no pictures on the website I found. Is it like Cat's Eye, both tires hooked to one valve? Do they have the explosive decompression protection so if one goes, the other doesn't empty thru the valve?

-Randy
 

aljimenez

'13 LTV Serenity on '12 3
... an internal system is best because it reads accurate temperatures, is not easily damaged, cannot be stolen, and with new valve stems it is easy to add air.
David
I do not agree with this comment that internal TPMS are "best". I have the TST system also, but the one with the sensors on the outside. I don't know why everyone mentions that these sensors are stolen; losing these sensors from stealing is possible but unlikely and they have theft prevention threading making them not easy to unscrew without a small tool that comes with them. As to damage, these sensors are deep into the wheel and I can't see how they could possibly be hit. Their batteries can be changed by me without needing to visit a tire store. I don't think accuracy of pressure nor temperature is any reason to choose one over the other either; TPMS systems are best viewed as detectors of change with either pressure and temperature rather than expect their readings to be extremely accurate.

I have had mine working over the past 6,000 miles and they work as advertized... Al
 

smiller

2008 View J (2007 NCV3 3500)
I use the Tire Minder/Tire Trakker (they are the same thing) system on a NC3V 3500 chassis and it works well. This is a heavily loaded Class C RV application and I wouldn't feel comfortable without some kind of TPMS. If you lost one of the inside tires on a dually, how would you know... other than the now-overloaded outside tire failing as well (perhaps catastrophically), which is sure to happen next on a vehicle running near maximum GVWR.

You do not take chances with tires on a heavily-loaded vehicle.
 

sailquik

Well-known member
smiller,
Usually if you loose an inside tire in a dual wheel set up, you will hear the tire begin to flap.
Do not ask me how I know this. Been there, destroyed an inside tire, had to buy another one!
Plus you will feel the instability.
But your TPMS on all 7 tires is a very good idea.
Roger
 

blue

2011 LTV Unity CB
smiller -- good to hear that Tire Minder TPMS has worked well for you. I just bought the system and have yet to travel. We will be going next week from Vancouver Island through Washington and Oregon to northern California. A salute to you Washingtonians and Oregonians as we pass through.
aailquik - in my case, only 6 tires which makes it even more important. To justify buying TPMS, I said to my wife that you will know that the inside dual is flat when you see rubber flying out the back.
 

Peter Tourin

2020 Unity RL, ex 2012 Unity MB
Smiller - that was a good question! I lost my outside left rear in January, late at night. Jean was driving and heard something, but it wasn't enough noise or vibration to alert either one of us. We drove - I don't know how far, maybe 30 minutes or more - to a campground and immediately went to sleep. When I did a walk-around next morning I was amazed to find a tire so trashed that I could put my hand into it...

I've been reading this thread and trying to decide whether we're going to install a TPMS - losing that tire sure got me thinking... I'm real interested to hear how the external systems work. A few questions: When you need to add air, do you simply take the cap off, bring the tire to pressure, and replace the cap? Or do you have link the cap with the receiver again? And does anybody know how reliably the caps stay on? Expensive to replace! Using the lock rings is more than anti-theft; it also prevents the caps from vibrating off - but it would make filling the tires more time-consuming.
 

smiller

2008 View J (2007 NCV3 3500)
You just remove the sensor to fill but there's no real effort involved, it's no different than removing a standard valve stem cap. Once the sensor is programmed into the receiver at installation then that's it, you don't have to program or link anything ever again. You will get an alert on your display when you remove the cap (because it senses the loss of pressure) but I like that because it is a good occasional test of proper operation.

I've never bothered to use the locking rings. The sensors will not come off by themselves and I consider the probability of theft to be nil. Even the manufacturer says that they aren't really necessary and only included in case the owner wants to use them.
 

smiller

2008 View J (2007 NCV3 3500)
As above, they are essentially transparent in operation. Imagine they are fancy valve caps and you won't know the difference. :) They weigh only about a tenth of an ounce or so so no effect on tire balance.
 

llamadave

New member
I do not agree with this comment that internal TPMS are "best". I have the TST system also, but the one with the sensors on the outside.
Note that new cars never have external TPMS. Mercedes uses an internal TPMS similar to the TST system in all recent model 4-wheel sprinters.

I quote from page 261 in my 2012 Sprinter owner's manual: "Do not install anything onto the valve (such as tire pressure monitoring systems) other than the standard valve cap or other valve caps approved by the distributor named on the inside of the front cover."


I don't think accuracy of pressure nor temperature is any reason to choose one over the other either; TPMS systems are best viewed as detectors of change with either pressure and temperature rather than expect their readings to be extremely accurate.
I like the convenience of viewing accurate tire pressures for all 6 tires once a day. Slow small pressure changes can affect fuel mileage and tire tread life.

Tires can fail from high temperature even when the pressure is in an acceptable range. A rubber valve stem does not conduct heat well and the external TPMS is being rapidly cooled by air convection, so it probably will not trigger the alarm reliably.

David
 

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