Tyre Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) and future MOT’s.

Hi All,

I have been following this thread with interest as I had the TPMS system disabled in my 2002 C5 some time ago. It seemed to me a good idea, which, I found flawed in practice. It should be technically possible to fit sensors to all five wheels and move them around the car without resorting to reprogramming the ECU.

Anyway, concerned my car would fail MOT’s from 2012 I have found time today to research the subject properly. Here are my findings.

As from 1st Jan 2012 it will be a requirement (amongst others) for all NEW car/trucks vehicles to be equipped with TPMS.

The EU directive to update MOT testing in line with this is ‘Commission directive 2010/48/EU’ - I have read this and section 5.2.3.(h) does provide for a visual inspection of the tyre for ‘air pressure monitoring system malfunctioning or obviously inoperative’.

However the introduction of the EU directive, paragraph 6 states as below;-

‘Reasons for failure’ do not apply in cases where they refer to requirements which were not prescribed in the relevant vehicle approval legislation at the time of first registration, first entry into service or retrofitting requirements.

This means the TPMS check will apply to vehicles registered after 1st Jan 2012 ONLY.

All vehicles now registered, and up to the end of the year, cannot be failed on the TPMS - ever.

As vehicles are MOT exempt for the first three years there will be no failures until 2015 and then only if the engineer can actually ’see’ that a sensor is missing.

I also own a sports car – a 1989 Mazda RX7 (200 bhp). When the RX7 was twelve years old the two stage ‘cat’ original equipment developed a hole – failed the MOT. As a replacement was £3000 from Japan I replaced the ‘cat’ with a ‘straight’ section – no ‘cat’.

Threw the ‘cat’ away. As the legislation for ‘cat’ converters did not apply to ALL cars until 1992 the RX7 then passed the MOT. The same situation will apply for TPMS. So no need to worry about next years MOT.

As for the safety concerns of doing without the technology of TPMS. I cannot help but remember that my lovely C5 is the only car I have owned that has put my life in peril – more than once – by going into ‘limp home mode’ while overtaking in the third lane of the motorway.

Regards,

Dave Barnard.

Hmm. I'd been thinking about investing in some winter wheels and tyres before it gets cold again. The need to fiddle about with pressure sensors is all a bit off-putting. I'd thought I could just disable the sensors completely, but that may not be an option with this new MOT rule. Now it sounds like I'll have to enable/disable the system, or reregister a different set of sensors, every time I change the wheels.