Hi Folks!
I picked up my 2009 2lt used, and the tire light is on and the two front tires show up as blanks or dashes when scrolling the menu. Rear tires show up fine.
Tried to do the relearn thing with the remote, but no luck, I am guessing the front ones are dead or not there at all.
Is there a simple way to test the sensors in the tire without rotating them?

 

How would rotating them test anything? Did you successfully reset the positions? Or did it timeout?
Rotating would tell you for sure which wheels have bad sensors, since there is no way to tell if they were ever relearned.

 

Hi Don! I tried to start the relearn process with the remote, but nothing happened, no horn sound no light on the driver's side... I followed what the manual says and just couldn't get the relearn to start which was why I was thinking the front ones might be dead... I might be wrong but it seems that if there is no working sensor in the starting position (driver side front) then the relearn may not activate...

As for the rotating, another thread talked of rotating to determine the bad sensors...

If the one in the front tire is dead or non-existent, would I still be able to start the relearn process?

ps thanks for the fast reply!

oh! and I do get the svc tire monitor msg when I start up the car....

 

If I remember correctly, the horn should honk for a time out.
Did you hold both buttons down at the same time? Depending on the manufacture date, your 2009 might require the special tool to activate the relearn. I don't remember the cut off date, just late in the model year.

If you rotate and the dead sensors would still read as front. If you change the pressure in tires and look at the dash readings you could tell which ones are really bad. A guess is that the previous owner had a set of snow tires.

 

yup! held down the buttons, had the parking brake on, key as to on but not running, did it exactly as the manual calls for numerous times, and just no response at all.

I have added air to them all a couple of times now, the back ones seem to be reading right with the numbers going up as the tires heat up, just nothing at all on the two front tires...

I do check all the tires regularly, I just want the little light to go away :-)

 

Some fragment of memory says there was a firmware update, and once installed the owners manual TPM procedure would no longer work.

 

That's probably the wheel sensor batteries that are dead. They were supposed to have approx 10 year life expectancy..

 

That applies to 2008 only, and the other way around. If the battery dies for more than a few minutes the TPMS refuses to relearn, a firmware update fixes it.

 

There we go. I did have 2008 that got an update, so I’m sure that’s it. Never was able to make the drivers manual work tho. Not on a Buick either. Fortunately, my local Chevy dealer does it for free.

 

Those dashes usually indicate dead TPMS battery.