Leafer
Active member
So, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum ... (with apologies to Plautus) ;-)
But first let me talk of my regrets.
1. I regret not having marked the location of the tires (prior to being rotated).
2. I also regret not having verified the relative positioning of the TPMS sensors as displayed in TorquePro versus actual tire location.
Now some of the background: I've been using Torque Pro for the past several months and within at least the past several weeks have not made any changes whatsoever to either the parameters (PIDs) or the displays.
A couple of days ago I ended up with a nail in the center of the tread of the right rear tire. I'm sorry ... I should be more consistent. The BR or back right tire.
How do I know this? you may ask. I noticed an unusual regular speed-proportional noise while driving, stopped the car and having heard the noise on the right inspected the back rear tire and found the nail. It was a slow leaker. I turned on Torque Pro and started monitoring the pressure on the BR.
I was on my way home but had to make a 30-minute stop. When I got back in the car the pressure had dropped from its normal 33 PSI to about 23 and the dashboard warning light for low pressure was on. As I started driving again the pressure slowly decreased further and I quickly stopped by a gas station to add air to 32 PSI. The Torque Pro display on the BR verified the air added.
My next stop was the tire repair shop which I reached with 27 PSI. They quickly fixed the BR with a patch and I was off again. The warning light for low pressure on the dash did not go off immediately, but the pressure in all four tires appeared normal and consistent.
Because I did not like the amount of pressure the repair center had put on the BR tire (it showed 2 psi low), I made an additional stop at another gas station. I powered off completely since I figured it has to go through a reset to remove the dashboard warning light. I added a little bit more air to the BR and restarted the car. The dashboard warning light was indeed off now. After a quarter mile or so I realized that the TorquePro display showed a slightly high pressure in the BR, and one of the other three tires (being FL) appeared slightly low. I was confused, fearing I had a second nail in FL, and I stopped again to release air from (what I thought) was the overcompensated BR while also finding nothing else amiss.
To my surprise the FL went even lower. (!)
To clear up the surprise and the mystery I performed the following the next day. (“SC_#” refers to the screenshots of TorquePro on my cell phone. Because the Screenshots would take up a lot of screen real-estate in this post I only reference their TINYPIC location by URL.)
1. SC_1.png [Starting Condition] http://i64.tinypic.com/10sc87s.jpg
2. Remove air FL; drive 1/2 mile.
3. SC_2.png [BR displays lower]. http://i63.tinypic.com/54un4i.png
4. Remove air FR. Drive 1/2 mile.
5. SC_3.png [BL displays lower]. http://i64.tinypic.com/10e1lqp.png
6. Remove air BR; drive 3/4 mile.
7. SC_4.png [FL displays lower]. http://i67.tinypic.com/2lstlld.png
8. Remove air BL; drive 1/2 mile.
9. SC_5.png [FR displays lower]. http://i66.tinypic.com/2rzbgva.png
Conclusion: X (cross over diagonals) pattern.
10. Remove air FR & FL in attempt to balance 3 of 4 tires (all except the tire that displays as FL, which in reality is BR (the patched tire). Drive 1 mile.
11. Achieved balance for two FRONT tires ( 0.3), which show up as BL & BR (SC_6.png http://i64.tinypic.com/a0f0au.png), but not quite close (low) enough to the BL (display: FR); decided to keep a 1 psi differential between FRONT & REAR tire pairs.
12. Added air to the REAR tires to reverse the 1 psi differential (more in REAR than FRONT) and drove home (SC_7.png http://i67.tinypic.com/29ppu94.png)
Now I remembered something. Two weeks ago while I was out of town a friend took the car to the KIA Service Center to ROTATE THE TIRES. I have no proof whether they actually did the work (don’t ask !) … and whether they RECALIBRATED (re-indexed) the TPMS sensors (or if they know how … again, don’t ask!) … but this leads me to the following question:
Is it possible that my Low-Pressure-Warning Event reset the TPMS PIDs ????
As I mentioned above, unfortunately I can not verify whether the tires were rotated – and in any case, even if they did, an “X” is not the proper rotation pattern – and I also am not sure whether the TorquePro displayed the correct (physical) locations of the sensors PRIOR to the nail in tire, but CLEARLY something CHANGED after the power-off to clear the Low-Pressure-Warning, since the BR tire was suddenly displaying as FL !
Open to discussion and ideas …. ;-) Let the sleuthing begin !
But first let me talk of my regrets.
1. I regret not having marked the location of the tires (prior to being rotated).
2. I also regret not having verified the relative positioning of the TPMS sensors as displayed in TorquePro versus actual tire location.
Now some of the background: I've been using Torque Pro for the past several months and within at least the past several weeks have not made any changes whatsoever to either the parameters (PIDs) or the displays.
A couple of days ago I ended up with a nail in the center of the tread of the right rear tire. I'm sorry ... I should be more consistent. The BR or back right tire.
How do I know this? you may ask. I noticed an unusual regular speed-proportional noise while driving, stopped the car and having heard the noise on the right inspected the back rear tire and found the nail. It was a slow leaker. I turned on Torque Pro and started monitoring the pressure on the BR.
I was on my way home but had to make a 30-minute stop. When I got back in the car the pressure had dropped from its normal 33 PSI to about 23 and the dashboard warning light for low pressure was on. As I started driving again the pressure slowly decreased further and I quickly stopped by a gas station to add air to 32 PSI. The Torque Pro display on the BR verified the air added.
My next stop was the tire repair shop which I reached with 27 PSI. They quickly fixed the BR with a patch and I was off again. The warning light for low pressure on the dash did not go off immediately, but the pressure in all four tires appeared normal and consistent.
Because I did not like the amount of pressure the repair center had put on the BR tire (it showed 2 psi low), I made an additional stop at another gas station. I powered off completely since I figured it has to go through a reset to remove the dashboard warning light. I added a little bit more air to the BR and restarted the car. The dashboard warning light was indeed off now. After a quarter mile or so I realized that the TorquePro display showed a slightly high pressure in the BR, and one of the other three tires (being FL) appeared slightly low. I was confused, fearing I had a second nail in FL, and I stopped again to release air from (what I thought) was the overcompensated BR while also finding nothing else amiss.
To my surprise the FL went even lower. (!)
To clear up the surprise and the mystery I performed the following the next day. (“SC_#” refers to the screenshots of TorquePro on my cell phone. Because the Screenshots would take up a lot of screen real-estate in this post I only reference their TINYPIC location by URL.)
1. SC_1.png [Starting Condition] http://i64.tinypic.com/10sc87s.jpg
2. Remove air FL; drive 1/2 mile.
3. SC_2.png [BR displays lower]. http://i63.tinypic.com/54un4i.png
4. Remove air FR. Drive 1/2 mile.
5. SC_3.png [BL displays lower]. http://i64.tinypic.com/10e1lqp.png
6. Remove air BR; drive 3/4 mile.
7. SC_4.png [FL displays lower]. http://i67.tinypic.com/2lstlld.png
8. Remove air BL; drive 1/2 mile.
9. SC_5.png [FR displays lower]. http://i66.tinypic.com/2rzbgva.png
Conclusion: X (cross over diagonals) pattern.
10. Remove air FR & FL in attempt to balance 3 of 4 tires (all except the tire that displays as FL, which in reality is BR (the patched tire). Drive 1 mile.
11. Achieved balance for two FRONT tires ( 0.3), which show up as BL & BR (SC_6.png http://i64.tinypic.com/a0f0au.png), but not quite close (low) enough to the BL (display: FR); decided to keep a 1 psi differential between FRONT & REAR tire pairs.
12. Added air to the REAR tires to reverse the 1 psi differential (more in REAR than FRONT) and drove home (SC_7.png http://i67.tinypic.com/29ppu94.png)
Now I remembered something. Two weeks ago while I was out of town a friend took the car to the KIA Service Center to ROTATE THE TIRES. I have no proof whether they actually did the work (don’t ask !) … and whether they RECALIBRATED (re-indexed) the TPMS sensors (or if they know how … again, don’t ask!) … but this leads me to the following question:
Is it possible that my Low-Pressure-Warning Event reset the TPMS PIDs ????
As I mentioned above, unfortunately I can not verify whether the tires were rotated – and in any case, even if they did, an “X” is not the proper rotation pattern – and I also am not sure whether the TorquePro displayed the correct (physical) locations of the sensors PRIOR to the nail in tire, but CLEARLY something CHANGED after the power-off to clear the Low-Pressure-Warning, since the BR tire was suddenly displaying as FL !
Open to discussion and ideas …. ;-) Let the sleuthing begin !
