Thanks for verfing what I've notice. So there still is some catastrophic failures many TPMSs won't catch, nor a real time warning of a lost sensor. Keep up the good work!

I'll be interested in what you find out. I suspect they set things up this way to save battery on the sensors as they aren't having to constantly update with an "I'm alive" kind of signal.

Hi Ray,
I have an older (~2016) model of the Tire Minder and the perception is that the unit has worked well for ~6000+ miles. The set up is for 10 tires, dually truck and 4 on trailer. However while traveling I-80 through Nebraska last fall the Ford factory TPMS alert went off for my inter dual on driver side and I could audibly hear air leaking. The Tire Minder had no indication of the a leak. I pulled off on to the shoulder and found that the valve stem was broken off and the TPMS sensor was gone. Tire Minder still says pressure and temp on that tire are fine. Limped into a repair shop and got things fixed. While there looking at the trailer tires I noticed that one of the sensors for a trailer tire was also lost at some point along the route. Tire Minder gave no indication of that tire no longer communicating data.

What I have learned is that receiver does not talk to the pressure sensors, it can only listen and displays whatever the last reading was, even when you press the button to update, you do not get a signal from the receiver to the pressure senors for an update, it just forces a display update of whatever was last sent.

If a value stem fails, or a tire fails after a sensor detaches, Tire Minder will never known it. I don't think I'll spend the money on another TPMS until they have an active unit that can ping the sensor and know it is present rather then these passive units that display the last reading, even if it was days or weeks ago. Turn on the receiver unit with no sensors turned on and the receiver will show pressure and temp for all tires and no indication a of problem. The one tire failure I did have was never caught by the system, and I was unknowingly open to a tire failure that it couldn't detect.

I have a similar lock, but only use it while in storage, but then we don't boondock either. I did replace the lock with one from Boltlock.com . I like those locks because the locks work off your trucks ignition key - one less lock-key to keep track of.