Issue link: http://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/375982
September / October 2014 14 TECHNICAL EDITOR By Karl Wilen "Someone help me I have a flat tire!" Still one of my favorite Geico commercials. If you don't know what I'm talking about, well then you are missing out! If I am lucky, Stan has found a Youtube clip and somehow integrated it without some copyright infringement I do not understand. Advances in technology have come a long way for automobiles in the last decade or so. With today's technology, we tend to rely on our car to tell us when there is a problem rather than being proactive about doing things like check the oil, or check the pressure in the tires the old fashion way! Remember when you actually checked your tire pressures once a month, or checked your oil level every time you put gas in the vehicle? We tend to find two schools of thought on this, many want to do these small maintenance items on their own and not rely on a computer to tell them, and others are the complete opposite. Sometimes that lack of activity gets carried over to a person's "older" car that might not have all the technology tools integrated in it, and that car ends up suffering as you get in a routine with technology. It's a vicious circle! Every spring we get a rash of the older cars experiencing poor performance after pulling them out of winter storage. 10 times out of 10 the tires have about 10lbs of air in them from sitting for the winter months. I fill them up, and bam, performance restored and I am a miracle worker. The problem with technology though, is that when it goes bad, it is a lot more expensive to fix. Tire Pressure Monitor Sensors (TPMS) have been found in cars regularly since about 2005, and have been required on all new cars sold in the US since 2007. Trivia: What was the very first production car to use TPMS sensors from the factory? Answer at the end of the article! TPMS sensors came into requirement in part due to the Firestone tire blowout cases of the late 90's in addition to trying to improve fuel economy on passenger cars. These systems are great, and will alert you when a tire is a few pounds low (or very low). After all, a low tire can easily cost you 10% in fuel mileage, and can help alert the driver so they don't drive on a very low tire which can damage the tire. There are 2 types of TPMS systems used in today's cars, indirect and direct. Indirect systems, use fancy computers and antilock brake sensors on the wheel hubs to check the rotational speed of each wheel, of which the computer can then tell if a tire is low on pressure based off the differences in tire rotation Photos by Karl Wilen T rivia: What was the very first production car to use TPMS sensors from the factory? Answer at the end of the article! Give This Article A Read Or Fall Flat TPMS SENSORS