TPMS or Tire Pressure Monitoring System is a system that allows you to automatically monitor your car tire’s air pressure.

This system has been integrated to many modern cars and can improve your overall safety and safe you from accidents due to underinflated tires.

Well, that’s only the tip of an iceberg, let’s get going and further explore the TPMS along with its benefits!

What is TPMS?

As we stated above, TPMS is a system that allows you to monitor your car tire’s air pressure. The purpose of this system is to give you a warning if at least one or more of your car tires are significantly underinflated.

The TPMS low tire pressure indicator is a yellow symbol and illuminates on your car’s dashboard instrument panel in the shape of a tire cross-section that resembles a horseshoe with an exclamation point.

With a long history of uncertainty about proper tire pressure and many serious car accidents that happen due to low air pressure, the TPMS sure can aid us to prevent those accidents.

And because of its serious and crucial role in maintaining safety, since 2007 every vehicle sold in the States must be equipped with TPMS or similar kind of system.

Types of Tire Pressure Monitoring System

Did you know that no tire pressure monitoring system works the same way? There are 2 types of tire pressure monitoring system which are indirect and direct TPMS. Dire to know more about these? Let’s get going!

1. Indirect TPMS

Indirect Tire Pressure Monitoring System is a type of tire pressure monitoring system that measures tire pressure indirectly using sensors in the vehicle system, especially in ABS (Anti-lock Braking System) or ESP (Electronic Stability Program) systems.

These sensors measure the rate of revolution of each wheel and based on the rate of that, the computer can interpret the relative size of the tires of your vehicle.

So, when your wheel starts spinning faster than expected the computer calculates that the tire is underinflated, giving you the yellow indicator in your dashboard.

To put it simply, an indirect tire pressure monitoring system won’t actually measure the air pressure in your tire as a tire gauge would do.

Instead, an indirect tire pressure monitor will measure how fast your tires are rotating and will send the signal if something in the rotation doesn’t seem right.

Here are some of the advantages of indirect tire pressure monitoring system:

Cheaper
Require less programming/
Less maintenance

And here’s the disadvantages for you to consider:

May become inaccurate
Unreliable when tires and unevenly orn
Must be reset after inflating every tire
Must be reset after routine tire rotation

2. Direct TPMS

Different from the indirect one, direct Tire Pressure Monitoring System is a tire pressure monitoring system that measures tire pressure directly using sensors installed inside each tire of a vehicle.

Each tire is equipped with a pressure sensor mounted on the inside of the wheel, usually on the tire valve.

This sensor measures the air pressure inside the tire and transmits the data to the vehicle’s computer system in real-time.

If the air pressure inside the tire is below the recommended limit, the sensor will transmit the data to the car’s computer system and send you the signal that will appear in your car’s dashboard.

This system provides more accurate and specific information about the pressure of each tire, and alerts the driver if any tire has low pressure.

Here are some of its advantages:

Deliver accurate tire pressure reading from inside the tire
Not prone to inaccuracies
Simple resynchronization after tire rotation or replacement
Batteries last long for about a decade
Can be included in spare tire

And here are the disadvantages:

More Expensive
Resynchronization may more costly
Battery not serviceable
Prone to damage

With that, it’s a wrap! Everything you need to know about the tire pressure monitoring system along with its type and pros and cons of every type of TPMS!