Wheel/tyre rotation and TPMS (Gen4)

I just spent an interesting but ultimately unsuccessful couple of hours this morning attempting to rotate the wheels/tyres on my car to even out tyre wear. I was not too hopeful as the manual is quite clear that the spare wheel doesn't have the TPMS sensor but I have heard from others that their spares did in fact have sensors and that moving all or any of the wheels around the car was no problem to do.
So, I got the spare off 1st and as it was off checked the mountings for any sign of wear or rust. Nothing to report (and no rubber washers that I could see).
I put the spare on the rear left and left it at the very high pressure it was at so I could see if I was getting a reading from the TPMS. I went for a short drive and, as suspected, the other 3 tyres were all reading normal pressure but no reading at all from the "spare" (now on the rear left). OK, so that confirms there's no sensor on the spare. So then I thought I'd just do a 4-wheel rotation instead of the 5-wheel that I'd hoped to do.

I then put the wheel that had come off the rear left on the front left. Off for another drive to check the TPMS readings. This is where it got confusing. Now, the rear left (was the spare, with no sensor, that wasn't giving a reading) was now displaying a high (accurate) pressure! How could that be? The other confusing thing was the front left (was the rear left) was not giving a reading at all!

So the original spare (with no sensor) was reading accurately but the front left (was the rear left, with a sensor) wasn't reading at all.

At that point I gave up and put all the wheels back in their original positions.

It really does seem that I should take the manual's advice and have the dealer do a 5 wheel rotation and reprogram of the sensors. Trouble is, neither of the 2 dealers I contacted to do this during a recent service were interested and wouldn't even give me a price.

The tyre wear is actually quite even, just the front left outside wearing a tad more than all the others but I would really like to spread the wear over all 5 tyres so that, when it comes to change, I can change to bigger, chunkier treaded tyres all round and not throw a perfectly good, unused tyre away. I'm tight like that.

I took the opportunity whilst underneath to check for rust but there's nothing obvious showing yet, and I'm quite impressed with the area and depth of under-body coating applied at the factory.

Bill,

I'm in the same boat, I wrote a post similar to this a few months back. My view is, if you want to rotate the tyres diligently, get yourself a TPMS Emulator. I think these modern TPMS sensors are a great idea for a mum doing the school run - but for any conscientious car owner they're a pain in the back side. I'll be looking to get one of these once I've upgraded the tyres, for the time being I'm not really too fussed about the spare being un-used. I'm just rotating the 4 in use

spooftpms.com

www.bigjimny.com/index.php/forum/7-jimny.../64422-tpms-emulator

mlines wrote: The TPMS Controller (NOT THE SENSORS) is limited to 4 tyre IDs only, so whether or not the spare has a sensor built in does not matter. The Controller can only deal with 4 IDs. In fact, without reseting the controller and re-programming you will not know if the spare has a sensor


The controller has a learning sequence to learn the IDs of the tyres fitted.

You have to put the Controller in learning mode with the car stationary, this is a sequence of opening the drivers door and turning on the ignition and then pressing the door switch in a coded sequence (I do know the sequence but will not print it here as using it erases the current four codes from the sensor).(Oooh, I wonder if erasing the codes gets rid of any low pressure warnings???)

With the controller erased and in learning mode, you use a TPMS Trigger tool to activate the sensors in sequence (left-front > left rear > right rear >right front). This teaches the controller the IDs of the sensors and the tyre positions.

Suzuki recommend the ATEQ VT30, VT55 or VT56 trigger tools. I do not know if the cheap ebay ones will do.

Martin, If I have just understood that correctly does that mean if fitting different wheels and tyres and you want to use the original sensors, then you will have to make sure each one goes back in its original location?
Or
If you bought four replacement sensors you would need a trip to the dealer to get those programmed?

mlines wrote: The TPMS Controller (NOT THE SENSORS) is limited to 4 tyre IDs only, so whether or not the spare has a sensor built in does not matter. The Controller can only deal with 4 IDs. In fact, without reseting the controller and re-programming you will not know if the spare has a sensor


The controller has a learning sequence to learn the IDs of the tyres fitted.

You have to put the Controller in learning mode with the car stationary, this is a sequence of opening the drivers door and turning on the ignition and then pressing the door switch in a coded sequence (I do know the sequence but will not print it here as using it erases the current four codes from the sensor).(Oooh, I wonder if erasing the codes gets rid of any low pressure warnings???)

With the controller erased and in learning mode, you use a TPMS Trigger tool to activate the sensors in sequence (left-front > left rear > right rear >right front). This teaches the controller the IDs of the sensors and the tyre positions.

Suzuki recommend the ATEQ VT30, VT55 or VT56 trigger tools. I do not know if the cheap ebay ones will do.

Thanks Martin, I should've asked before attempting the rotation. Not that I understand most of what you said! Would a 5th ID on the back of the car make any difference? Wouldn't it be out of range?

As far as I know about TPMS system, you do not need a special tool to trigger a sensor.
You only have to make the sensor “work”. (This is what the trigger tool do)
So you only need to make the tyre flat (may be after a 10 minutes drive so you are shure that the sensors are not in sleep mode) and at a certain point the sensor will be activate so if you are in learning mode, the system will detect the sensor. The real problem is how to put the car in learning mode with this sequence described by Martin, some post earlier.

What's puzzling me is how, if the spare has no sensor, did I get an accurate reading from it when on the rear left position? I know it was that tyre that the reading was coming from because it had a 32psi pressure reading and the other tyres all have 27psi.

Id have thought that TPMS is mature enough technology to be fit and forget/ plug and play. Any wheel in any position and it should be able to sort itself out.