O/T vehicle safety

[OhioFisherman]

I have a Chevrolet 2009 Cargo Express van, 2500 series that I bought used the end of July last year. It had 14, 800 miles on it when purchased and now 21,000. Yesterday I took it to Walmart for an oil change, as part of the package they check tire pressure and ad air if needed. The valve stem blew apart, the van has a tire pressure sensor and sending unit built into the valve stem. I believe this is the same shared platform as the Chevrolet and GMC pickups? The service people at Walmart said that these seem to be subject to corrosion and are failing, an aluminum core instead of brass?

 

45 bucks for a valve stem, all they charged me for was the part, but they did mention they are failing on other vehicles too, and some of the sensor valve stems cost 95 bucks each? They also said it was against the law for them to replace it with a standard valve stem, USA LAW. They mentioned my others are going bad too, and on some of valve stems the air valve pin is extended out past the end of the stem, something I have never seen before.

 

Save your eyes, have yours checked, most people don`t wear safety glasses putting air in their tires. The parts may be covered under warranty.

[smally21]

i had this problem on my toyota tacoma. the actual corrosion occurs on the exterior of the valve stem as soon as a tire cap of a different metal is put ont. basically anything other than oem plastic. so it takes a pair of pliers to remove the seized cap, and the valve stem breaks. all four tires in similar condition. basically four flats. so the genius's at toyota have built the 3$ valve stem into a 120$ sensor, so replacemt is 480$ + tax + dismounting and remounting the tires. about 650$ because the 10$ aluminum valve caps looked nice. so in ontario you just say to hell with it put in regular valve stems but now your air pressure warning light is on full time. so either short out that sensor in the wiring harness - ground it where it goes into the ecm that is to disable it, or store the sensors under pressure inside the vehicle. some ideas include inside a 3" pvc or abs tube with a valve on it you can inflate to standard tire pressure and store under the back seat. or get a cheap pneumatic tire like from an appliance dolly, put the sensors inside the tire and inflate. stash somewhere on the vehicle.

 

the lamest part of this is the tire pressure system sucks in the first place. it can take weeks of low pressure before it activates, it actually never activated when the spare was removed and left in the garage for three weeks! so all this trouble and cost for a system that i never wanted in the first place.

 

now assuming the truck goes 400k, and tires last 80k, this truck will see 5 sets of tires. i replace valve stems everytime i do tires, cause its only 15$. so to replace valve stems in my toyota over its life span will cost an extra 3500$ above the cost of the rubber. freakin ridiculous.

 

so i feel your pain brother, i guess you could be happy they are under 50$ if you were in canada they would charge you 150$.

 

my toyota is awesome but id like to meet the guy who came up with the tire pressure sensor and slap him around for a while.

[SBCregal]

thank the ford explorer/firestone tires fiasco for the mandatory TPMS (tire pressure monitoring system) on the new cars. at the shop, we've replaced tons of them. using the caps that come with them helps. *I* think that the problem is that people never unscrew them at all until the light comes on (which could take years). 45 bucks for on is pretty cheap, some of the european luxury cars are even more. the way i look at it, if you arent responsible enough to check your tire pressures regularly (i check mine weekly) you shouldnt be behind the wheel of the car. all these drivers aids, like blind spot warning systems, TPMS, adaptive cruise control, backup assist, parallel park assist etc, are just dumbing down the driving public, and are nothing but a bad idea. we already have enough people that dont belong on the roads.

 

 

ryan

[alexcba]

loop the sensor and walk away..

[smally21]

of course you are responsibloe for the vehicle you drive (i drive a heavy D class vehicle at work and of course have to check/log everything daily). but the busy driver of today takes his vehicle in every three months for lube oil filters etc. every garage claims to check/adjust tire pressures at this time. a good question for the mechanic is 'did you check my tire pressure?' of course he says he did. the next question might be 'then how did you do this if the valve caps are hopelessly seized?' or 'how did they get this seized if you are removing them every 10-12 weeks?'

now before every mechanic on the site climbs up my back for saying this my comment is just that the toyota dealer wants to be my 'full service no worries guy' but they obviously never did what they said they did, they are full of it either way you know?

but ultimately you are responsible for your own vehicle its funny my 5$ air guage never cost me any money and my tires were always fine......

 

hey dunner there are rumors of a repair kit for this problem but ive never been able to find one any ideas?

Edited July 25, 2010 by smally21

[SBCregal]

there are service kits for when you do tires. they are a seal, retaining nut and new valve cap. we put a new one on every time we do a set of tires. for what its worth, 3 months is WAY to long between checking your tire pressures. most owners manuals (and common sense) say that you should check your tires at each fillup. being too busy to check your tire pressures is a pretty lame excuse if you ask me, your safety, and perhaps more importantly, the safety of everybody else on the road depend on your vehicle being safe. it takes 30 seconds to check 4 tires and not much longer to add air if necessary. being a mechanic, im responsible to let you know of things i see when the car is in my bay for a half hr. the rest of the time its the owners issue. i am a mechanic...im not gonna jump all over you for thinking that way though. its a conversation ive had too many times in the past. when we tell people that they need work on their car, we're ripoff artists, when we dont tell people whats wrong with their cars, we arent doing our job...its lose/lose. oh well.

 

 

ryan

[smally21]

thanks for the lecture. i'll check my tire pressure twice a day from now on.

 

if you check the original post and the replies no one did ask you. you're comments about lame excuses, lacking common sense, and endangering others on the road are offensive. the post was about an experience with tpms and you turned it into a sermon on tire pressure, passing judgement on people you know absolutely nothing about. by the way checked my tires like i always do they are exactly the same as they have been for years. if you need to adjust your tire pressure every week maybe you should take a look at your own vehicle....

Edited July 27, 2010 by smally21

[pikehunter]

Just another technology scam to screw drivers when they get the car on the hoist. I'm getting sick of paying repair bills and it doesn't matter if your car is 2 years old or 10+, their going to get you one way or another.

 

If I was facing your decision I would find a shop that would bypass this and toss regular valve stems on the tires. Just my opinion 'cause I don't need a warning system to tell me I'm being lazy.