Thread: I removed my Tyredog TPMS before doing the Gibb River Road

We just completed a big Melbourne to Kimberly loop via WA coast and Central Oz in the D3 towing a camper trailer. The old girl didn't miss a beat for the whole 17,800km journey, and not even a single puncture despite some pretty horrible gravel roads. I put that down to good trip prep including a set of new Bridgestone 697 as recommended by several folk on this forum.

Having previously experienced a puncture whilst towing near Arkaroola, I was pretty determined to de-risk that side of things. Hence the set of new D697s, a second spare for the car and a Tyredog TPMS.

I'd bought a Tyredog with 6 sensors off ebay, and installed the relay under the right hand side of the car shortly before setting off. I pretty soon realised that whilst the display would show pressures for six wheels (4 car, 2 trailer), there was something amiss with one of the trailer pressure measurements.

When driving at speed on bitumen, the TPMS would faithfully record the increasing pressure and temperature in the tyres as the tyres flexed with the rotation (quite an eye opener how much the pressure can change), however it didn't show any change for one of the trailer tyres, but continued to display the pressure at the start of the drive.

It became clear pretty quickly that the signal from the left trailer wheel just wasn't being picked up by the relay, except very occasionally, like when taking a left hand turn at an intersection, which seemed to allow a brief period of connectivity. Eventually I just removed both trailer sensors, figuring it was better to be receiving no information than pressure data that was not correct.

Despite no-longer having the trailer pressures displayed, I still had the vehicle pressures displayed. It was good to be able to keep an eye on them as we travelled.

At Cape Range I had to air down for the first somewhat lengthy stretch of dirt, and that was when I saw that the sensors were rubbing against the rim. It seemed that the rubber valve stem was flexing outward with the weight of the sensor and rubbing on the rim, wearing a groove.

I didn't do anything about it at the time, but it played on my mind, until at the beginning of the Gibb River Road, with many hundreds of kilometres of hard corrugations ahead I started to picture in my mind the sensor jerking violently at the end of the rubber valve stem as I drove on the corrugations, and figured that the risk of damaging the valve stems outweighed the benefits of seeing the pressure of the tyres, and so removed all of the sensors.

Sensor on Valve stem

Groove worn in rim

Ironically I met another Disco owner about half way along the GRR, towing a big off-road van. I saw that he had something odd attached to his rims. He explained that he also had Tyredog sensors, and was told of the problem of valve stem flexing by a guy in SA. The guy had said to fit a few inches of that black cylindrical hot water pipe insulation over the sensor and valve stem., rather like a collar, and that this would cushion the sensor and stop the stem flexing. He duly bought some pipe insulation at the Bunnings in Ceduna and installed it. ( It took a picture - I hope he doesn't mind - see thumbnail below)

Of course there is no Bunnings on the GRR, and so I elected to leave the sensors off rather than fashion some makeshift alternative.

To be fair to Tyredog, they do say in their instructions that the sensors should only be fitted to wheels with steel valve stems. I figured though since several forum members were using them successfully, that they'd be fine.

For mine though, the flexing of the rubber valve stems is too great, and the thought of the effect of corrugations presented too much risk. Maybe I'll try the pipe insulations, but too be honest, It looks a bit ugly.

Originally Posted by Fred Nerk

Tyredog accessories include a silicon cover that protects the sensor and the rim. Easy to fit, they just slide on yet are very secure.

Silicon Cover to suit all TYREDOG External TPMS Sensors

As for your relay location; I put mine in the cubby box next to the third row seat, "temporarily". Been there ever since. Picks up trailer signals and is out of harms way. Changing the batteries could not be easier. No need to try to secure it under the car.

The main thing I was concerned with was that the valve stem itself would fail through excessive flexing. Those silicon covers wouldn't really stop that I think.