I don't understand the issues everyone has with this. Do you get annoyed with a gas milage readout? I mean it's really the same concept. It's easy for anyone to pull out a calculator and check their milage when they get to the pump, but hardly anyone does it. Even fewer people, I'd suppose, frequently monitor their tire pressure - and that creates a safety issue where even if granny only drives for a week or so on her 40% under pressured tire(s)... it could cause a serious issue with hydroplaning in rain or at least significantly reduced fuel economy, tire wear, etc.

I personally don't care about the dummy light in my 4Runner, but if you gave me an exact pressure readout that would be useful and interesting because you could monitor your tires for slow leaks, see under what circumstances they occur, see if the drop in temperature has made any significant drop in your pressure to the point you want to correct it, or vice-versa with warm weather. Basically it's like me being able to monitor my tire pressure at any point in time; bad weather, good weather, road trip, at home, or whatever without using a tire pressure gauge. Lazy? Maybe? But then again the same could be said for fuel economy readouts, maintenance reminders, steering wheel audio controls, and a myriad of other things on cars that aren't necessary but just make life with a car that much easier.

 

I'm thinking of putting one on my Avalanche.

I check the tire pressure, regularly.. This is the theory of what happened: My wife was on a highway trip and ran over a nail, that create a relatively slow, but fast leak.. The tirepressure went dangerously low after a couple hours of straight normal driving on the highway, however, my wife did not realize this.. driving straight on a highway in a truck and all... Tire overheated and blew out a chukn of the sidewall, and seconds later while she was slowing trying to get over the shoulder, completely blew out the outside sidewall (there was nothing left). Luckly, she was able to bring the truck to the shoulder and stop without any damage to the truck..

That 1800 roadside assitance # from Chev really does work though!

 

No your wife was just lazy for not getting out to check her pressure once an hour on the road trip.

[/sarcasm]

I mean realistically... stop thinking about your gearhead self and think about your mom driving down the road, how many women do you know who have no idea what a low tire feels like while driving and could go a month without ever looking at their tire closely enough to realize it's dangerously low, much less take the pressure on a tire that's low but not low enough to be visually obvious?

 

The difference is that I actually check things like air and fluids on my car once in a while. Also, not everyone wants a loaded luxury car with hundreds of features. It may be nice if you only drive new cars, but if you keep them for a long time or are a second or third owner, it's really annoying to deal with crap breaking that isn't even needed anyway.

 

I'd hope most systems are made to where if they break they don't require expensive replacement just to keep from annoying their owners to death; but I guess I wouldn't be shocked if that weren't the case.

 

All of those things are optional. No one is anti-technology. There is just no reason to add cost to every car just because a few people are too stupid or lazy to check their tires.

If you WANT to pay more for a tire pressure monitoring system, go to town.

 

Amen

David

 

As a Ford service advisor, I can tell you that this is a bad idea.

Out of 10 cars that come thru my shop per day, at least one is a tire monitoring problem.

Garbage.

 

Might just be because it's a Ford.

But yeah, I can imagine it causing problems until they really get it all worked out like 10 years down the road. Personally, I'd rather see it be an option. To the person saying that we don't complain about our mileage gauge, I don't have one. I use the calculator, and manually figure out how much I get per tank.

 

One would think that before making tire monitoring pressure standard equipment and adding $500 (approx) to the cost of the car, they would mandate ABS to be standard equipment.

As most have said, no problem agains the technology, but do it right and don't make it mandatory. A dummy light is total BS because optimal pressure varies with brand of tires. Displaying the actual pressure is such a better idea.

 

 

Aight, good story for this topic. My company's vehicle that I, as well as another guy, drives has the TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) on it. I went to drive it today, warning light came on. Mentioned it to the other guy, commented it's been on for a few weeks.

 

Just like check engine light. If you ignore it, maybe nothing bad will happen. Or maybe it will go away.

This is why numeric readout is preferred, IMO.