Confused about tire rotation and TPMS

I do a search here on keywords "TPMS" and "rotation"; I get conflicting answers.

Some of them say that the TPMS has extremely short range pickups at each wheel position, which then connect to whatever wheel sensor is physically closest.

Others (particularly in the LeafSPY forum) say the system needs to be told which wheel is in which position.

And the owner's manual says nothing at all.

Can somebody straighten me out on my 2018? It's at the local America's Tire (Discount Tire in most states other than California) right now, getting a rotation, and getting a slow leak in the port rear tire fixed.

when I rotated the tires myself...the car TPMS display took care of itself....The spy app and its display maybe be different...hence your confusion.

That could be.

Prior to 2018 there is a procedure using LeafSpyPro to have the car learn which sensor is in each location. I don't have a 2018+ model so I don't know how they operate.

In either case, even if the tires are in the wrong location, the TPMS light will come on if one tire is low and the tire pressures can then be measured manually.

The Leaf Spy Pro app includes the commands to cause the car to relearn the TPMS transmitter positions because 2011 through at least 2015 require the learning procedure to have the individual pressures related correctly to tire position. I used the app with my 2011 and 2015 to reprogram the system every time the tires were rotated or replaced. I discovered that the system automatically learns the tire transmitter positions on my 2019 when I replaced the OEM tires. I assume the change was made starting with 2018 models--hopefully someone with a 2018 will confirm.

In case it's useful, a guy on this thread provides a procedure that he says will cause the TPMS system on a 2018 to relearn the wheel positions:

https://www.reddit.com/r/leaf/comments/ff84xj/2018_40kwh_leaf_sv_switching_to_summer_tires_in_a/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=comments_view_all

I've never concerned myself with TPMS wheel positions. If I ever get a low pressure warning I'll be checking all 4 tires with a gauge anyway.

Well, as of this evening, I have empirical evidence that the TPMS knows where all four wheels are. And I also learned that the knob next to the business end of the compressor hose is to bleed off excess pressure.

So either it's self-enrolling, or the tire technicians at America's Tire know how to re-enroll the tires.

hbquikcomjamesl said:

Well, as of this evening, I have empirical evidence that the TPMS knows where all four wheels are. And I also learned that the knob next to the business end of the compressor hose is to bleed off excess pressure.

So either it's self-enrolling, or the tire technicians at America's Tire know how to re-enroll the tires.

Click to expand...

Or they didn't rotate the tires :lol:

Learjet said:

when I rotated the tires myself...the car TPMS display took care of itself...

Click to expand...

Interesting, it looks like our Leafs have 4 directional antennas, each pointed at a wheel quadrant, to get position right.
The explanation in this article is cool:
"2. Do I need to get my sensors re-registered after a simple tire rotation?

Answer: Some systems that display the tire pressure at each location require a sensor re-learn procedure to be done after the tires have been moved to a different corner of the vehicle. But others use antennas in the vehicle’s wheel well to “see” where the old wheel moved. If the sensor with the ID code of 1234567 was at the left-rear location, but now the left-front TPMS antenna is reading that 1234567 ID code, then the system will update its TPMS display to correctly show the wheels and the tire pressures at their new locations. The most common system only displays a “Low Pressure” light on the dash and those systems normally don’t need to be reset when a tire rotation has been done. You may want to consult the 2007 Mitchell1 TPMS Guide for a specific answer concerning a TPMS-equipped vehicle."

reference https://www.tirereview.com/tpms-101-tire-rack-offers-answers-to-top-five-tpms-questions/
That article, and about a million other articles in Tire Review magazine, cover tire topics in depth, including stuff about new tires & rubber compound tech emerging, etc.

hbquikcomjamesl said:

Can somebody straighten me out on my 2018? It's at the local America's Tire (Discount Tire in most states other than California) right now, getting a rotation, and getting a slow leak in the port rear tire fixed.

Click to expand...

I have a 2018 SL with nearly 38K miles and I have 6 or 7 tire rotations under my belt & about 5 months ago I purchased aftermarket wheels & the OEM TPMS sensors were installed on the new wheels & have done absolutely nothing regarding learning/enrolling & the car dash as well as LeafSpy Pro seems to be unaffected.

I would also be checking all four tires if the low tire pressure popped up on the dash but I also check the tires PSI while driving roughly every few weeks to ensure the tires are adequately inflated as well.

Nubo said:

hbquikcomjamesl said:

So either it's self-enrolling, or the tire technicians at America's Tire know how to re-enroll the tires.

Click to expand...

Or they didn't rotate the tires :lol:

Click to expand...

That scenario doesn't seem likely. They're reputable (and honest enough that when they failed to fully seat one of my expensive all-metal hubcaps* properly after a tire change on the Camry, some years ago, and it fell off, they sprung for the full cost of a replacement). They would not risk the liability of saying they'd rotated the tires, when they hadn't actually done it.

Besides, the rotation was prompted by the rear tires having more tread depth than the front tires, and now the front tires have more tread depth.

Remarkable: I didn't have to circumvent any unwanted links.

_______
*Toyota truck hubcaps. The hubcaps that came with the Camry were cheap plastic, and had self-destructed in less than a year.

hbquikcomjamesl said:

I do a search here on keywords "TPMS" and "rotation"; I get conflicting answers.

Click to expand...

The conflicting answers are because the answer is model year (range) specific. Some people talk about 2015s and others talk about 2019s, and if they don't specify what model year, they aren't really helping.

Obviously, older posts from 2017 or earlier all speak to the original LEAF (2011-2017), where the TPMS sensors weren't dynamically detected and the car needed to be told which wheel each sensor was on. Edit to add: I don't know how it works on newer LEAFs.

jlv said:

The conflicting answers are because the answer is model year (range) specific. Some people talk about 2015s and others talk about 2019s, and if they don't specify what model year, they aren't really helping.

Obviously, older posts from 2017 or earlier all speak to the original LEAF (2011-2017), where the TPMS sensors weren't dynamically detected and the car either needed to be told which wheel each sensor was on.

Click to expand...

Thanks. Saves me having to temporarily un-rotate a pair to verify dynamic, directional detection empirically.

On my 2018 S, the TPMS auto registers the tires, so it knows where they are after the rotation.

I was also confused about this tire rotation mapping in the beginning. But, after experimenting and performing several rotations myself, I found that there is no need for me to do anything else to remap the tires after a rotation.

I remember the first time I did a rotation on my Leaf, I tried using Leaf Spy Pro to remap the tires. I was not 100% sure it worked, especially since the Leaf Spy manual -- yes, I requested and downloaded the manual from the developer :idea: -- indicated that 2018 models are not supported. This manual recommended verifying the tire positions by doing a drive-though method, where you set a different tire pressure per wheel, 3 psi apart, drive around a bit and then log the tire pressures and positions; it all checked out and the tire pressures got adjusted.

Other times post rotations, I just played with the tire pressures here or there and noticed that the tire positions were correct.

But, in the end, I realized that I do not even care much for tire positions w/ TPMS readings. I periodically check the tire pressures anyway, so I know where they are at when time comes.

I remember the first time I did a rotation on my Leaf, I tried using Leaf Spy Pro to remap the tires. I was not 100% sure it worked, especially since the Leaf Spy manual -- yes, I requested and downloaded the manual from the developer :idea: -- indicated that 2018 models are not supported. This manual recommended verifying the tire positions by doing a drive-though method, where you set a different tire pressure per wheel, 3 psi apart, drive around a bit and then log the tire pressures and positions; it all checked out and the tire pressures got adjusted.

Click to expand...

It went exactly that way for me as well.

Given that on a 2018 (and presumably later), the TPMS dashboard telemetry is close to real-time (it takes less time to update, once the system wakes up, than it takes to wake up the system), there's no need to drive around on wonky pressures; I just bled off a few PSI, watching the telemetry, then pumped it back up, again watching the telemetry.

Funny how the service writer at America's Tire thought I was asking how soon the warning light would go away (I already knew the answer to that: "immediately"), when I was certain I'd been clear in asking whether the system knew where the tires were.

At any rate, the telemetry shows four healthy tires, and so I've switched back to my usual charge level and estimated recharge time display.