Tire Pressure Sensor Issue on a 2009 Ford Escape

K

Killjoy

Forum Member
Guys - any experiences with Ford's TPS system? My brother has a 2009 Ford Escape that intermittently flashes a TPS warning on the dashboard. He took it to a tire shop and they used a scanner/programmer tool to tell the truck relearn the 4 TPS sensors, but the tech said that the computer refused to relearn the front left sensor. The tech was confident that replacing that sensor would not help... that the issue was on the computer/receiver module side.

Any experiences like this? Truck is out of warranty... trying to figure out the best path to fix. Dealer wants $110 to just look at it & no idea of the parts/labor bill to come afterwards.
 
Likely a bad sensor, they fail often. Maybe rotate the tires and see if the learn issue follows that wheel?
 
The tech at Belle Tire said that he could see the left front sensor transmitting, but that the car's computer just wouldn't accept it for some reason. Does that sounds normal, or is there a case where the sensor may be transmitting, but still faulty?
 
It can be transmitting but not being picked up, yes. The issue can be either the sensor or the module, the module will be big dollars, but if it has a fault regarding the L.F. sensorit would always fail it, so if you move that tire elsewhere and it still has an issue with the L.F. it's likely a module problem. This can either be a programming issue or a fault in the module itself, a simple re-flash may be available for this problem.
I'd start with the easiest thing, move the tire and retest.
 
Killjoy said:
Guys - any experiences with Ford's TPS system? My brother has a 2009 Ford Escape that intermittently flashes a TPS warning on the dashboard. He took it to a tire shop and they used a scanner/programmer tool to tell the truck relearn the 4 TPS sensors, but the tech said that the computer refused to relearn the front left sensor. The tech was confident that replacing that sensor would not help... that the issue was on the computer/receiver module side.

Any experiences like this? Truck is out of warranty... trying to figure out the best path to fix. Dealer wants $110 to just look at it & no idea of the parts/labor bill to come afterwards.
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Try this. Let the air out all the way dowm and wait for couple min than refill the tire. I have done that on my customer cars and it works.
 
Gookracing said:
Try this. Let the air out all the way dowm and wait for couple min than refill the tire. I have done that on my customer cars and it works.
Click to expand...
That really only wakes up the sensor, which you can do with the reset tool, they likely would have done that to see if it was transmitting.
 
Look in the manual. There should me a manual relearning process that is provided for when you rotate your tires. Usually it is setting the parking brake and flipping the ignition on - off a number of times or something like that. Then relearn the tires in a different pattern to see if the problem follows the stem or the location. I'll bet it is a bad stem. You can usually pick one up for around $50.00 and have it installed. Then you can simply activate it yourself using the manual learn procedure. No need to pay another $50 - $60 to have someone else reprogram it for you
 
Yea, he was going to take it in to Belle Tire again to have them rotate the tires (at whatever charge; $10-20) and see what happened. Problems is we don't have a TPMS reader tool.. so if we rotate them ourselves, relearn and it's still throwing a "tire pressure sensor fault" code, we have no way to knowing which corner is the problem still.
 
The sensors have batteries in them that allows for transmitting. The battery is like a watch battery and is moulded into the plastic of the sensor. Some of the batteries fail early, but overall they should last about 7 years. So everyone better get ready for sensor changes...lol
 
Killjoy said:
Yea, he was going to take it in to Belle Tire again to have them rotate the tires (at whatever charge; $10-20) and see what happened. Problems is we don't have a TPMS reader tool.. so if we rotate them ourselves, relearn and it's still throwing a "tire pressure sensor fault" code, we have no way to knowing which corner is the problem still.
Click to expand...

During the relearning procedure the car responds by chirping the horn every time the TPM sensor is recognized. This tells you to move to the next wheel.
 
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