Tyre Pressure Monitoring

[jimbo]

What are people's views on retro fit monitoring systems that involve installing a pressure sensor inside the tyres, attached to the wheels themselves? I'm engaging in some 'blue sky thinking' while my car's away!
Cheers

Sent from my GT-I8750 using Board Express

[Shug]

There was a flurry of interest in them as a cheap system was made available for the LOT racing guys a couple of years back - don't think the wheel sensors lasted long though. My tame tyre fitters (who are excellent in every other respect) managed to kill two of the in-wheel senders on my Audi too - laughed out loud when I inquired about the cost of the Audi sensors.

IMO, a bit of a waste of time on a Lotus, where you'd want to be giving it regular checks in that area anyway - takes a second to get a pressure gauge on a tyre when you're checking brake pad thickness or giving the balljoints a wiggle.

[Ferg]

Most of the 'proper' stuff uses senders on the back of the valve or even strapped to the wheel on the centre line. I looked at this a few years ago and found that there were mixed opinions about the retro fitted stuff and it wasn't cheap so I didn't commit. As Shug points out, a £15 electronic pressure gauge from Halfrauds is a good second best.

Worth noting, Kenny(FlyingScot) got a puncture at Oulton and it could be argued that the pressure sensors in the Evora (factory fit) saved any damage to either the wheel or worse when on track.

[flyingscot68]

Worth noting, Kenny(FlyingScot) got a puncture at Oulton and it could be argued that the pressure sensors in the Evora (factory fit) saved any damage to either the wheel or worse when on track.

It worked a treat, I could see the pressure dropping slowly on the display so I knew we had a puncture long before I would have felt it through changes to the handling of the car.
I put some air in and was able to monitor the pressure while we found a garage to repair it - ended up a Kwik-Fit but that's another story

They sell a kit in The Lotus Forums shop that might be worth a look http://www.thelotusforums.com/shop/27-t ... ccessories

I've not had any problems when changing tyres - you've got to make sure the fire titter knows they're there and how do deal with them.

Cheers,

Kenny

[Shug]

That's the kit that I believe the sensors batteries (and this is only from reading some posts on SELOC, so not empirical evidence at all) lasted significantly shorter than the suggested 7 (I think) years. More like 1 in some of the cases I read.

Of course, could just have been a bad batch and it's all sorted now - just a heads up to double check though.

[Ferg]

That was one of the many reasons I decided against it. Had been tempted by the TyreDog one too but IMO the caps look rather ugly on the car.

[jimbo]

That's all cool, I knew others would have thought of it in the past. I may still look into it at some point, but for now I'll pop it on the shelf along with so many other things I can't at this stage afford!

Cheers

[Ferg]

Nowt wrong in wanting one. One of the first S1's I had a look at in the flesh was Noops 160 at knockhill. I thought the tyre pressure display was tres cool, wanted one ever since.