I think I read MOST of it in another thread here. Probably posted by GaryG or JMorton who seem to have most of the tech manuals.

You are right... IMHO the system should recognize 5 tires. When it sees the fifth tire spinning... fine no problems. Its startling that they didnt' think of it. I THOUGHT also that after a few restarts the system would figure out there were four transmitters and youd be okay, but I'm not sure about that.

There is one other option, There may be a good reason but I've always been a bit confused about why one rotates the fifth tire in.... is it just to make all the tires last longer? I suppose that makes some sense, but if its intended to ensure that all five tires are worn evenly... well, what happens when you need the spare due to a blowout? When you go buy the new spare (either that or you go without one ) you STILL have a new tire with no wear in the rotation. Whats the difference between that and just not rotating that fifth tire in and leaving it as a spare until its needed?

 

Well answering my own question.... you never know what to believe on the internet but I found, http://www.tirerack.com/tires/tirete....jsp?techid=43

Which ends with the line:
So I suppose once you get a flat you'd have to NOT rotate the spare in after that because the same thing would occur.

 

Thanks Tim. Good information. My intent was just to have a full size spare, and use it to extend the life of all five tires by rotating it in. Since our Escapes are not really full time AWD or 4WD, I don't know how critical it is that all tires be of similar wear.

I think the real answer for me is to just disable the TPMS, although I'm sure it's not as easy as pulling a fuse.

 

This makes sense, I guess...but the previous time I rotated all 5 tires, I kept getting the sensor triggers...more than once...more than 4 times even...If the retraining occurs for each tire, then I should have seen only 4 triggers? I didn't count, but I could almost swear it was more than 4 times. This last time I did the rotation, I have noted the trigger hit twice already....I'll keep track this time, and only when I'm driving (and ask my wife to keep note when she drives as well).

Yes, it's sad that the dealership technicians don't know this simple system very well...I guess it it not a crucial system.

 

The "retraining" has to be done at the dealer with a device connected to the computer bus AFAIK. They had to disconnect my ScanGauge to connect their box.

It would seem that as long as you only rotate the four original wheels, no retraining is necessary as those four codes are recognized by the system. But introducing a new code with that fifth wheel is what causes the problem. Retraining the system just forces it to accept the new code into the set of four, along with the original three. That means that every time the fifth wheel is rotated in the system has to be retrained, and at the dealership. At least that's our working theory.

 

So training is done at the dealership, and can only be done there? So if they re-trained yours, then how is it that you still get the warning?

I thought I read somewhere that the re-training is automatic...by driving a bit...I'll see if I can search for that somewhere...

 

Sorry bad explaination... system can only remember 4 at any time... so you'd keep booting one out and every time you rotate the tires you'd be training the thing.

 

I'm NOT getting the warning anymore. See my post #18 from yesterday. The retraining of the system at the dealership has apparently "fixed" it.

I'm going back to the dealer this week to followup and see if there's anyway the owner can accomplished the retraining.

 

Yep and that nifty little tool costs $600 last time I checked. It is required by Federal law for all cars and light trucks to have a tire monitoring system.

 

Its too bad. Its not the law thats the issue though. Its the execution. Nothing stops the system from recognizing 5 ID's in memory and then detecting that one is missing BUT there are still 4 active ID's and they read the right pressure so all is okay. To me its just poor engineering... and thats coming from someone that IS an engineer.