No TPMS Warning Light

Have you driven without TPMS? If you have your summer tires with TPMS near your parked car, it may think they are still on the car.

 

I just checked the manual. As it turns out, there is no "TPMS" warning light on PRIME. On my previous Gen3, we had TPMS warning light that is different from low tire pressure warning light. So, maybe not having TPMS is OK on Prime. You just have to remember to check tire pressure manually from time to time like old days.

Statement corrected. The original statement above referring to Gen3 Prius was wrong The TPMS lights I remembered was not from the previous Gen3 Prius, it was from my old Honda Civic Hybrid. Maybe Prius never had "TPMS" lights I was thinking of.

 

pg 190 last item in chart refers you to pg 656 On the display it's below Brake ans seatbelt icons on the right.

Tire pressure warning light
When the light comes on:
Low tire inflation pressure such as
• Natural causes (→P. 659)
"The tire pressure warning light may come on due to natural causes such
as natural air leaks and tire inflation pressure changes caused by temperature.
In this case, adjusting the tire inflation pressure will turn off the
warning light (after a few minutes)."

 

Then back to square one.

Get dealership to check it out?

 

There is a TPMS icon on the display you posted and all new cars are required to have TPMS.

 

i was going to say the same. it may not have a TPMS warning light but all cars model year 2007 and newer must have some form of tire pressure monitering system.

 

Thanks. It seems to be I have mixed up my recollection of "TPMS" warning light from a different car, not from Prius. Prius line probably never had "TPMS" warning light to begin with. The warning light you are pointing to is this icon.



I was referring to different "TPMS" light in my earlier statement. The statement about previous Gen 3 Prius was wrong, and I added correction. I own Honda Civic Hybrid, and it has two different warming lights on the dash. One is just like the icon above, indicating "low tire pressure" as sensed by TPMS. However, in HCH, there is another warning light that lights up when TPMS is malfunctioning or not present or otherwise not detected by ECU. In HCH, when any one of four TPMS sensor is not working correctly, warning light simply light up "TPMS" on the dash without showing other warning lights including the low tire pressure light. Prius does not have that "TPMS" light. I have had number of time seeing "TPMS" lights on HCH which required for me to replace TPMS sensor, but now come to think of it, I never had any TPMS related lights come on previous Gen3 Prius, nor on my present PRIME. Toyota system seem to have included TPMS sensor malfunction warning with the low tire pressure warning light (above icon).

So, going back to OP's observation, it is strange that no warning light comes up after removal of TPMS from the car, and unfortunately I have no good explanation for it. Yes, it may need to be checked out by dealer.

 

There are a couple explanations,
(1) if the orig tires are still in the garage, the car can still see the TPMS and get a good reading
(2) If you actually lose pressure, the TPMS light comes on within about 1 minute (Gen2 anyways)
(3) IF instead you lose signal/reading , the old good reading is still in the data register. On a Gen2 is takes about 20-30minute drive for the computer to realize the signal is not being upated

 

OP stated

Did not say how far or how long he drove, but I would think it is longer than 20-30 min and farther than TPMS in garage can send signals.

 

With our 3rd gen fwiw, even though the stock wheels (with tpms sensors) are in the garage next to the car, I've still got the warning, all winter with my snow tires. When I first put the snows on it might not come on for the first 20 minutes of the first drive (I'm a little foggy on the delay), but it comes on soon, and stays on for the duration. Sometimes it's solid, sometimes blinking, it has a mind of it's own.

 

...??? did you intend to say TPMS light off? In the case above we would expect the light on, except I am not familiar if Gen4 is a different animal than Gen2/3.

 

OK good that's what I am trying to say in Post #11- it can take a while for the car to deduce a missing TPMS. If instead you had a tire with an actual low pressure, that would register more immediately.

 

^ That's pretty much what I was thinking too; I was typing this when you posted:

I wonder if the car reacts different, due to it not being TPMS sensors present and low pressure, vs sensors absent.

 

Yes it is different situation...if the TPMS sends a low pressure signal, the system will react instantly. If the TPMS sends no signal, then that takes longer to pick up. Not sure why. But lots of other systems in the car take a while to update also. Recently I made the mistake of clearing my error codes before inspection (because I wanted to hide some codes on my VW). So when I went to inspection I failed because after you clear the codes, it takes some driving time to restore the systems status readouts. So I had to take some longer trips and then go back for inspection. Passed this time.

I learned that the Va. inspection ignores certain warning lights including TMPS and some other emissions lights (I get a gas cap error all the time on my VW). So I shot myself in the foot by clearing the codes before inspection

 

I believe what you are talking about is called a "Drive Cycle".