Aftermarket TPMS

[sor]

Hi everyone, curious what experiences have been with aftermarket TPMS.

When I got my winter wheels I just had the existing TPMS sensors moved over, because the shop said the listed aftermarket sensors were backordered. Now that I swapped my summers back, I need to get this resolved. The tire shop installed aftermarket sensors, but couldn't manage to get them to program to the car. They say everything looks good but after driving around the car fails to learn them. One potential red flag here is they didn't even bother to ask what model of vehicle I had when I dropped off the wheels, they just said "doesn't matter, it's universal".

This tire shop has ultimately tried twice with two different sensors and failed.

I then took it to dealer. They quoted me $2000 for a set of OEM sensors + install. This seems extreme to me and I politely declined but threw up a little inside. I checked Suncoast and it seems like even OEM sensors shouldn't be more than about $600 for a set.

Now I'm at a different tire shop. They suggested I bring the original sensors to them and let them "copy the profile" to a set of aftermarket sensors they have listed as compatible. If I do that it will be tomorrow or the next day.

1. Is anyone running aftermarket TPMS, at all? Would like to gauge how much of a compatibility problem exists, if it's hard or easy (in which case my original tire shop just sucks) to get sensors working.

2. Is the dealer price gouging in your opinion?

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[krissrock]

yeah i have Autel MX-1 models (iirc). They work perfectly fine.
as you noted, the shop probably didn't do their due diligence. You do need to know the car specs to program the TPMS's.
I bought the sensors, and a programmer (autel MaxiTPMS TS508)...$100 for the sensor, $130 for the programmer.
The sensor is able to grab the specs and ID of the OE sensors...and then it can copy that data to the new sensors...
easy peazy.... Haven't had any problems .
if you were in the philly area, certainly could help you out with the programmer

 

[sor]

I took the original TPMS into the shop that was going to copy profiles but they say the sensors won’t scan. He seems to think they’re broken but they worked when I pulled these winter wheels off the car just a week ago.

I think I will try to buy the Autel kit, see if it can clone, and then take hopefully working sensors into the shop to install.

@krissrock would you mind confirming what models you have?

 

[sor]

Looking at:
https://a.co/d/030CyPeX

However I guess at this point the programmer compatibility is the most important part seeing how the shop couldn’t even read my OEM sensors

 

[krissrock]

yes, the MX sensors are what i have.
and you can see in the description, it lists the Tool that i also bought as compatible.

 

[sor]

Ok, thanks for the help. I got the sensors and the TS508WF programmer. I was able to clone the OEM sensors, and also see through OBD that my car has an unknown sensor learned on one of the slots, so I think the tire shop only really programmed one correctly.

I can totally see how they screwed this up because (in the Autel programmer at least) there are multiple profiles for 2025 Porsche Macan 433MHz, and only one actually sees my OEM sensors. The shop didn't have the OEM sensors to compare to, and in fact they didn't even want to know what model of car it was when I dropped the wheels off initially.

I have to laugh though because Porsche quoted me $300 just to try to reprogram the aftermarket sensors, and that is more than I paid for the programmer!

At any rate the tire shop has agreed to swap in the sensors I programmed and they're doing that now so hopefully this resolves everything. Would have saved myself a lot of time if I had just bought and programmed the aftermarket sensors when I bought my winter wheels, and bolted them on before taking them to get tires mounted.

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