Thread: TPMS

My cheapie set with solar powered display have locknuts and after last years 9k trip through outback Qld and SA and then covering 8k km on this current trip, the majority of which has been rough gravel, dirt, a loop out into the Simpson, Goog's and both the Birdsville and Oodnadatta tracks I'd never bother with the internal sensors again, these external ones have a locknut and coupled with the piece of pipe insulation to stop them wobbling are all still going fine. Mine is practically identical to this one 2X(Smart Car TPMS Tyre Pressure Monitoring System Solar Power charging Digi Y4R8 | eBay

Well I went with the Masten kit with 6 internal valve sensors 6 TPMS Tyre Pressure Monitoring System Caravan Truck RV Sensor LCD 4WD Wireless 4x4 and my initial thoughts are;

Pros
Cheap. Unit and 6 sensors, $285 delivered.
Neat install and only cost $100 for 6 tyres at the tyre shop.
They use the same frequency as my old Safe-T-Dave valve based units so I will pair them with my trailer soon (hopefully. I'm sure the kit is made out of the same factory as Dave's one as they look and work exactly the same)
Far more convenient than the external units for deflating. No dropping sensor in sand, no listening to alarm going off in the car etc.
No chance of unit falling off as I've had in the past.
No damage to rim. (I tried all sorts of protection with the external ones but they all wore off)
Power cable from old unit works with the new one so I didn't have to rewire it.

Cons
All sensors read more than actual by about 4 psi. Well at least according to my tyre gauge. I'm OK with that as I only really want it for fast deflation warnings.
More expensive to replace the whole sensor and not just the battery when it goes flat.
Sensors go to sleep overnight so you hear a beep in the morning as the head unit tries to find the tyres. Wakes up pretty quickly once you get going though.
Some have commented that tyres shops break them. My tyre guys says they are so common nowadays everyone knows about them. We'll see I guess.

So, without going off-road yet, or scoring a flat, the internals seem to work as expected. Here's hoping.