Road Trip to Indian Wells - 2015 Audi A3 Long-Term Road Test

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Road Trip to Indian Wells - 2015 Audi A3 Long-Term Road Test

We drove our 2015 Audi A3 to the Indian Wells tennis tournament. It was quiet and comfortable, but we did have one problem.

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fordson1

So basically all of the tires on an Edmunds LT car were below spec, just that one was more so. Seen this movie before...

schen72

I can't believe some manufacturers still use the old style of TPMS that only measures relative PSI. Even my 2006 Acura displays actual tire pressures, albeit in a more primitive style display (not full color LCD).

saulster

Schen72, I CAN believe it, my 2015.5 Volvo S60's TPMS doesn't even tell which tire is low when it alerts, just check everything to find something. Sigh.... A "premium" car ( and IMHO any new car these days ) should have a TPMS that, like you say, displays all four tire pressures, and, not just when one is low but as part of the electronic gadget menu whenever needed.

kirkhilles1

Is this the first year of TPMS sensors? This is a 1995 model, right? "Check all tires?" No listing of actual pressure? Reset TPMS? Unacceptable for such a higher end vehicle - even basic vehicles have this.

smrtypants44

IIRC VW group doesnt use TMPS sensos anymore. They use the ABS sensors to detect a change in the speed of one wheel vs the others. I'm not sure the A3 even knows what the PSI in that tire is, just that its speed compared to the others changd over a threshold.

misterfusion

It was a bit of a disappointment to lose my individual TPMS monitors in my Dodge Journey for the generic "low pressure somewhere" alert in my new FIAT 500L. However, the FIAT is hardly a premium car -- and besides, it's way more fun. (Also, I've only had the car a few weeks, so hopefully there will be no tire pressure issues for quite a while.)

mojo_mike

In 2015 not displaying the actual tire pressure values is inexcusable, especially for a "so called" luxury brand. My BMW X1 had a similar setup (though those cheap bastards wouldn't even tell you which corner was the problem). I sold that POS and now a have a proper TPMS setup with my 2015 Mustang.

schen72

Back when TPMS first came out, I could almost understand the thinking behind not displaying actual tire pressures, since not all cars had an LCD display. But now, all cars have some sort of LCD screen, so it's easy to display the pressures. I don't think the sensors are that expensive, especially since plenty of non-luxury cars have them.

lazykid

The way VW/Audi does TPMS in some of their cars, they use the ABS sensor along with the Traction Control sensor to read tire pressure. This is called indirect TPMS and makes it easier to deal with changing out wheels, less up keep, and generally cheaper for the car owner to maintain in the long run. As you can see, the sensor tells you which wheel is underinflated and tells you to check all 4 as a precaution. If you fill up all four wheels to their proper amount, you just reset the TPMS setting just so the car has the baseline of what is now proper inflation. Direct sensors are the sensors placed on each individual wheel/tire and the spare. These are the sensors can read individual tire pressure. They also rely on radio frequency and have batteries that need to be replaced. If you have summer and winter wheels, you need an extra set or need to swap the tire pressure sensors into the new wheels. (I believe most shops also charge a fee for swapping in TPMS sensors, which is ridiculous) While having each individual reading displayed is nice, as someone who has had TPMS sensors die on them and replaced, I'd take this indirect system over direct any day.

dgcamero

lazykid said:

The way VW/Audi does TPMS in some of their cars, they use the ABS sensor along with the Traction Control sensor to read tire pressure. This is called indirect TPMS and makes it easier to deal with changing out wheels, less up keep, and generally cheaper for the car owner to maintain in the long run. As you can see, the sensor tells you which wheel is underinflated and tells you to check all 4 as a precaution. If you fill up all four wheels to their proper amount, you just reset the TPMS setting just so the car has the baseline of what is now proper inflation. Direct sensors are the sensors placed on each individual wheel/tire and the spare. These are the sensors can read individual tire pressure. They also rely on radio frequency and have batteries that need to be replaced. If you have summer and winter wheels, you need an extra set or need to swap the tire pressure sensors into the new wheels. (I believe most shops also charge a fee for swapping in TPMS sensors, which is ridiculous) While having each individual reading displayed is nice, as someone who has had TPMS sensors die on them and replaced, I'd take this indirect system over direct any day.

They're $60 a set if you look around...but it's not unreasonable for a tire place to charge money to swap the monitors. They have to dismount the tires, remove the sensor and swap it with the valvestem on the other rim, remount the tires, then rebalance both. That's a bit of labor for sure.