Washing the car Sunday I noticed slight bubbling from the tpms valve ,just checked it this evening and its dropped about 7psi . I put a little more pressure in them on the weekend so I’ve obviously upset it . They are a pain,can you do away with them and use normal valves as they are about £30 each!
We had exactly the same problem on my partner’s Mini about 18 months ago. I dropped into a local tyre guy and he replaced the leaking original metal screw type valve with a generic ‘rubber’ valve body which had the fixing screw to install the TPMS sensor within the tyre. It was much cheaper than the ‘proper’ Mini item, and it has been fine. We couldn’t tighten up the original valve to prevent the leak because the thread was corroded and it sheared off, far too easily for my liking, when he tried. If the Mazda is anything like the Mini, if any of the the sensors are not installed you’ll have a permanent warning on the dashboard.
JS
What goes inside the tyre exactly? Whatever it is still has to send signals to the dash clocks to stop the light coming on doesn’t it. Thanks
The TPMS sensor (on the Mini at least) is a small plain plastic block that’s fixed to the valve inside the tyre with a small srew. It clearly must contain an air pressure sensing element which is read by detectors built into the car near each wheel, in much the same way as RFID tags. My very hazy memory from seeing the valve being changed is that the sensor is 12x6x6 mm and weighs very little.
JS
Ok thanks js I’ll look into it .
I’m pretty sure that any warning light which does not go out is an MOT fail
I think TPMS on the ND is actually done by the ABS registering different rolling diameter, so there’s no fancy sensor in the wheel.
I had arranged to get my wheels circulated and on the day the TPMS warning came up. No sign of a soft tyre and the tyre specialist found them all A1 and at correct pressure. It still showed a fault as I drove off from the tyre place but cleared automatically once the wheels had turned enough times (the guys at the tyre place had had to dig to find this info, whilst I had come to the same conclusion paging through the 500+ page manual on my phone, though it was a bit unclear). We came to the conclusion the warning was down to the very cold weather affecting something somewhere!
My October 2019 ND certainly has sensors in the wheel as I had to have one fitted to the wheel and tyre I bought as a spare, otherwise fitting it to the car would cause the TPMS light to come on.
My son’s Mazda 2 may have a different arrangement and frosty weather certainly causes the warning to light up !
Well the full manual says TPMS via ABS on normal tyres and sensor valves on run-flats! Anyone got run flats on their five?
Seems like Mazda don’t know either!
Mea culpa. Even though the UK manual is as I wrote above, however the US 2019+ manual just has the sensor type shown. Plenty of foaming on US forums about change from ABS to sensors! I suppose it’s possible the ND2 has different systems for different markets / regulations so both manuals could be right?
Anyone who has actually replaced their wheels with aftermarket on an ND2 should know if they had to buy or move the sensors?
I haven’t had the light come on as yet . Phoned mazda today hopefully they will put a new tpms valve in under warranty .
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The ND changed from an indirect TPMS system (using the ABS wheel speed sensors) to a direct TPMS system (wheel units in each wheel) at first facelift, VIN serial number 300001 onwards.
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My ND2 certainly has a direct TPMS system with units incorporated in each wheel valve. She was purchased in October 2019 from a UK Mazda Dealer.
My son’s older Mazda 2 certainly has a different system which regularly lights up the TPMS warning in frosty weather.