"Tire Pressure Monitoring Unavailable"

Fiat 500s that Do it Naturally.
RobSmith
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2019 9:24 am
Your Car's Year / Make / Model: 2013 Fiat 500 Pop

"Tire Pressure Monitoring Unavailable"

Post by RobSmith » Sun Dec 29, 2019 7:04 am

The symptoms are - the message in the EVIC (tire pressure monitoring unavailable)
When I try to read the pressures using the EVIC - they all work, except the RR. There, I get a "--"

So it seems that the tire pressure monitoring IS ACTUALLY available...it's just not reading the RR pressure sensor
Does this mean I simply have a bad sensor (shot battery) ?

If that's the case, then replacing the sensor(s) with the appropriate sensor/sending unit should fix my issue, I'm guessing.

So, what if I buy a new sensors and install them myself?

My big plan is to buy a fairly inexpensive bead breaker which in reality - I only intend to ever use once (ok, 4 times), pull the offending wheel, let the air out of the tire, break the outside facing bead, squish the tire down far enough to get to the air valve/TMPS doohicky, replace it, refill the tire, and slap that baby back on the car. Viola!

Right? Right? Bueller? Bueller?

Well, here you go -

OK, I ordered the sensors off Amazon. They came in before Christmas. Today, the bead breaker thingy came in. Funny, I already had the a$$ of the Hooptie up on the floor jack, messing with the exhaust, which had a clunk.

So, once the clunk was fixed, I got all the stuff together to try out the new bead breaker. (Pics below)

After pulling the valve stem core, I hooked the bead breaker on the wheel, worked it just a little, and it BROKE THE BEAD LOOSE! It was easy.
The harder part was getting the old unit out without dropping it into the tire because: Well THAT funks up the balance, don't it?
Pulled the new TPM through the hole after soaping it up, pulled the valve core out of that one, soaped up the bead/rim a bit, and filled it with air from the portable compressor I had. No issues there.

Once it was all back on the car, I took it for a drive and the light went out at exactly 2.7 miles (YMMV)

Viola!
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texanbrit
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Location: Conroe, TX
Your Car's Year / Make / Model: 2013 500c Abarth
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Re: "Tire Pressure Monitoring Unavailable"

Post by texanbrit » Mon Dec 30, 2019 11:33 am

Great write up, thanks for sharing!

Do you have a link for the the sensor that you ended up buying? I think that any 433MHz sensor will do though.

My only parting comment on this is that is that the new 124s need a different sensor (they use the Mazda frequency 315Mhz)
2013 Abarth 500c (NGen Turbo'd) - Isabella
2012 500 Pop (broken, engine rebuild on hold) - Popabella
2014 500L (Daily workhorse) - The Hulk
2013 Abarth 500 (broken engine, current project) - Abby

RobSmith
Posts: 5
Joined: Sun Dec 15, 2019 9:24 am
Your Car's Year / Make / Model: 2013 Fiat 500 Pop

Re: "Tire Pressure Monitoring Unavailable"

Post by RobSmith » Sat Jan 04, 2020 10:48 am

Sure thing. I actually ended up buying a set of these sensors from Amazon, based on the recommendation of another guy who had done basically the same thing - and it worked fine. Reset automatically and dash messages went off in a little over 2 miles of driving (for me). These are 433 mhz sensors

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GJ ... UTF8&psc=1 Like $53 for the set

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MadFiat
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Your Car's Year / Make / Model: 2015 Fiat 500 Abarth
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Re: "Tire Pressure Monitoring Unavailable"

Post by MadFiat » Sat Jan 25, 2020 12:29 pm

Thanks for the link and testimony of working sensors.

Currently my only sensor issue is that since switching to the 15" monza wheels, my T can't figure out which wheel is which. It reads all the sensors fine, they just constantly swap around which wheel it thinks each one is on.
2015 Rosso Abarth 5MT - MAD FIAT - EC Phase 2 + Supporting Mods
2015 Granito Lucente 500T 6AT - Projecto Estupido
2017 Fiat 124 Spider 6MT - Another one???

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