Happy New Year! Holy Hell in a hand-basket it’s been a long time since my last post. Maybe you thought I was dead or something? Nah, just biding my time until winter pisses off for good. To be fair though, it’s been a pretty mild affair apart from a few days at Christmas when it got stupid cold out. Snow-wise we’ve really only had a few sprinkles here and there so far, without any real build up. That may change over the next month or so, but for now it’s been pretty manageable.
Shirotan? He’s doing well. The winter tire setup has been top notch up to now and even though there really hasn’t been much snow to speak of, there have been some slippery days here and there and I gotta admit that the car has been fairly rock solid when driving around town. Of course, I’m not pushing it in any way, but compared to driving my wife’s CX-30 with your typical all-season shit rings on it, it’s very clear just how much better the grip is with proper winter tires.
There has been one glaring problem this whole time, though. Yes, problem, and finally last week I got it taken care of. What problem you ask? The friggin’ TPMS setup for the new wheels. Now, let me be clear, the TPMS sensors that came with the wheels from the Tire Rack work perfectly fine, no problems there. The actual problem was getting the car programmed to recognize them and give a proper readout like it does for the OEM stock rims. Some of you, I’m sure, are like, “What’s the big deal? Just take it to the dealer or a tire place and have them program the wheels into the car.” Did that. I took it to my dealer to have it done when I went in for my last oil change and the result was that they couldn’t get it programmed and weren’t sure why, plus they scraped up one of the interior panels in the process somehow, which is some shit. That convinced me that the only option at this point was to do it myself, and as I found out going through the process, I can actually cut the dealer some slack because it was nowhere near as straightforward as you’d expect it to be, though I’m never taking my car back there for maintenance work unless it’s something serious, due to the interior damage. At any rate, I figure my experience is a good one to share here so that others who may want to tread the same path have a much simpler time of it, because once you know what to do it literally takes only a few minutes max to complete.
First things first, you’re going to have to drop some cash up front if you want to DIY the TPMS setup. Either that, or find a friend who has the gear you’ll need and is willing to lend it to you. In my case, I have none of the latter, so I ponied up the cash, $279 USD + tax specifically, and bought a TPMS tool – this one in particular: AUTEL TS508WF TPMS tool. Is it expensive? Mmmm, compared to others I found it’s about average, but it’s easy to see how the idea of spending that kind of cash on something you may only use a handful of times might be a waste. To me, I’m OK with it since I know I’ll also use it on the wife’s car at some point, plus I’ve already told my friends I have one now, so like owning a pick-up, I’ll become everybody’s bitch when they need some wheels programmed. I’m fine with that. However, if you don’t want to drop that kinda buck, I’d say you could buy one used, or buy one new and then just sell it afterwards to get the bulk of your investment back. Your choice, have fun. I should also mention that there are other models and brands out there, but AUTEL was the one I regularly heard the most talked about and from what I saw when I was shopping, cheaper ones won’t allow you to actually program the TPMS sensors into the vehicle, which is the whole point.
The second thing you need to know is that our cars are stupid. They can’t learn the sensor positions or discover new sensors on their own; the only option is to manually read them then input them directly into the car’s ECU. On a positive note, our cars have the ability to store two sets of sensors that you can easily switch back and forth between, so if, like me, you only have a set of summer and a set of winter tires, then once you program in the second set you can just switch between the two at the press of a button – or at least a few presses. That’s really handy and means you only have to reprogram the TPMS system again if you swap to new wheels and sensors or have a third set, like a set of track tires. Otherwise, once setup, it’s super simple to change TPMS settings for your regular seasonal swaps without the need for the tool. Now on to the fun!
As I found out, at least at the time of writing this and using AUTEL firmware v. 1.14, vehicle v. 1.92, and sensor v. 6.39, getting the car to recognize the TPMS sensors and behave properly isn’t quite the cut-and-dry experience it should be. At least for the sensors that come from Tire Rack, though others I’ve heard are similar. The main issue is that the OEM sensors and TPMS system is apparently a Toyota product and not Subaru. That might seem obvious if you own a GR86, but since even that car is built by Subaru same as the BRZ and is primarily a Subaru mechanically, it throws somewhat of a kink into the works. Originally, the AUTEL tool didn’t have a dedicated option to choose either the ’22+ GR86 or BRZ, but that has remedied itself and now if you update the tool properly, you’ll have those options. Nonetheless, in my experience they still don’t work quite right and you have to use a workaround to get things done properly, which I’ll share with you. This is what I did and how to re-program your car to recognize a new/second set of TPMS sensors. I will also add the usual disclaimer here, which is to say that you are entirely responsible if you muck your car up by reading my post and trying to program the sensors into the car. To be honest, there’s nothing that will happen other than you may get no pressure readout and have a warning light come on, but just the same if you’re not handy with basic car repairs and don’t have the confidence to do this properly, get an experienced friend to help or go to a dealer/tire shop instead.
To start the process, you’ll need your TPMS tool and its cable, plus maybe a tire pressure gauge and a means to inflate your tires if it becomes necessary. I’m going to assume for brevity’s sake that your tires are already inflated to the proper cold pressure per the label on your car, but if not you’ll want to make sure they are, and the tool will remind you about that when you first start out. Also, I’m assuming you’ve updated your tool to the latest firmware and data, plus have the settings set to the correct market, etc.. The quick overview of the process is that you’ll first scan each wheel sensor into the tool, then hook it up to the car, tell the car which slot you want to save the data to, and then complete the actual programming. It literally takes 5 minutes max to do once you know the deal, so let’s get started.
Power up the tool and at the main screen you’ll want to choose the [Advanced Mode] as shown below:
Next, choose the manufacturer of your car, which will be either Subaru or Toyota:
Now you’ll need to pick your model from the list:
And then the year. This post is primarily about the 2022+ models, but obviously choose what you have if different:
At this point you’ll come to this menu, where you’ll need to choose [Position Relearn]:
From there, choose [OBD Relearn]:
Once you do that, you’ll get the following screen that goes over what kind of prep needs done before you scan and upload the sensors to the car. Read it and do what it says, then hit [OK] to continue:
Now it’s time to scan the sensors, and you have to do it in the order it asks or you’ll monk things up. Go to the sensor indicated on the screen and scan it with the tool. Once it reads the sensor, it’ll beep and move to the next sensor position. Scan that one, then rinse and repeat for the remaining sensors.
Once you do all four wheels, it’ll ask you if you have a spare to scan or not. Follow the directions, and once that’s done you’ll come to a screen where it’ll tell you to hook up the cable and tool to the car’s ODB II port in order to program the data into the car. The port is tucked just under the dash to the immediate left in the driver’s side footwell, right next to the door towards the front of the space. It’s pretty big, so you should know it when you find it. Plug the tool’s cable into it securely then into the tool itself. It’ll then ask you to turn on the car and to hit a button to continue. After pressing the button, the tool will communicate with the car’s ECU and then eventually ask you if you want to program the data into the current data slot or if you want to choose which slot to program. Pick whichever option suits what you’re trying to do. In my case, I chose to do the second slot because I was adding a second set of wheels for winter, and not directly replacing my summers. Once that’s done, it’ll tell you it’s communicating with the car and eventually you get a message that it completed fine along with a confirmation screen showing all the sensors and their status, plus any DTC errors if some occur (rare). Follow the remaining directions the tool gives and when it tells you you’re done, you’re done. At this point, you just have to drive the car around for 10-15 minutes above 20 mph to have the sensors show up and verify that they are working properly.
Here’s the hitch, though – if you follow the directions above to the letter, there’s a good chance that the sensors won’t show any pressure data in the car’s display. They might, but a lot of folks besides myself have had the issue where they don’t show up at all. The TPMS warning light goes away, but no pressures are shown. I’m not going to go into the why’s of the problem, but after doing some research, I found a workaround that people have had recommended to them from various tire and service shops. Basically, instead of picking our vehicle from the list when starting the procedure, you pick a 2021 Toyota Camry using the snap-in sensors instead. Do that and follow everything else, and your sensors will work as expected and the pressures show up. The only caveat is that there’s no option given to program the sensors into the second slot, because a Camry doesn’t have one. If you don’t care about that fine, but there is a way to get it done nonetheless. What I did was to go through the process first using the proper BRZ/GR86 choice from the vehicle list and program the sensors into the second slot. Then, using the TPMS switch in the car, I switched to that second set and made it active. Then I did the relearn procedure once more using the 2021 Camry workaround, which then programs the working data into the current slot, which happens to be the second slot we programmed during the first pass. At this point, you now have working sensors in both slots and can switch back and forth between them properly. Admittedly, it a PITA to have to get here in such a roundabout way, but it works, and that’s what’s important.
Whew, finally made it to the end. I apologize that this was such a long post, but the info shared is important to know and kinda irregular, so best to be thorough. Hopefully, it will help you to DIY your own TPMS programming and tire swaps, so if so, awesome! See you again soon.