Balancing and TPMS

Living this close to the ocean is hard on tire pressure sensors. Salt air corrodes the valve stem and the seal around it, so the tire loses air slowly and the light comes back a week after somebody topped it up. Filling it again does not fix it. When a tire comes off the wheel here we fit a new service kit so the seal is new, which is what actually stops it.

A shake that appears around highway speed and goes away when you slow down is almost always balance. Alignment shows up as pulling to one side or uneven tread wear, not as a vibration. A shake only when you brake is usually rotors. We road test it, and we balance every wheel we fit as part of the job.

Not always, but you do need the service kit: the valve core, seal and nut that sit between the sensor and the wheel. Those are the parts that corrode near the coast, and they are cheap while the tire is already off. The sensor itself has a battery sealed inside that lasts somewhere around seven to ten years, so on an older car it is often due anyway. We test each one before we put the wheel back on.

Some cars need a short drive above about 15 mph before the system re-reads all four and clears itself. If it stays on after that, one sensor is usually dead or not being seen, and a light that flashes for a minute at startup and then stays solid means a sensor fault rather than low pressure. Bring it by and we will read each sensor and tell you which one it is.