Our 2006 HHR LT now has 189,000 miles and has been a great car, but is starting to show it's mileage and age. The in-laws have offered to give us their 2009 HHR LS with 71,000 miles. Yep very nice folks! Their HHR has the standard LS 16" wheels but with TPMS. Ours has the 2006 factory 17" LT wheels (w/o TPMS of course) with nearly new tires. I would like to put our LT wheels/tires on their 2009 and put their wheels/tires on our 2006, and sell it later. Will this be possible with the TPMS? Will the TPMS fit or attach to our LT wheels? I know nothing about these sensors. Thanks!

 

I'm pretty sure the two different valves fit the same size hole in the wheels, so yes.

 

Yes, it should work. The drawback is the expense of having all 8 tires dismounted, the sensors moved, and all 8 tires remounted, balanced, and installed.

 

The TPM s are attached to the valve stems. Rubber valve stems are not reuseable. The rubber valve stems used for TPM are different from regular rubber valve stems.

If you put 17 inch wheels on a car programmed for 16 inch wheels the odometer and speedometer will not read the correct numbers. It is possible to reprogram the computer.

 

So the tires will have to be physically removed from the rims to take off and put on the sensors?

 

Yes, they are inside the tire. And donbrew is right, you'll also need new valve stems, and the odometer and speedo will be off, unless the overall diameter is the same, which is not likely. And who knows how long the TPMS sensors will last. If they start to go, you'll be doing this again. And do the tires have enough tread to bother with, before you have to replace them? At 71,00 miles, they're either pretty new, or on their last legs.

 

Thanks for all the info. I like our wheels better, but sounds like it may be more trouble than it's worth. I assume there is no way to just bypass the TPS?

 

Fwiw.
You could just put your old LT rim/tires on the 2009. The TPM light would stay on but if you could live with it, it won't hurt anything. Lot's of owners have winter rim/tires they use that don't have the TPM sensors.
And putting the 2009 rim/tires on the 06 won't hurt anything because the 06 doesn't have the TPM system.

Only caution would be don't park the 2 cars next to each other. If they're close enough together, the 09 can still pick up the tires sensors. Even if they're on another car.

 

I am just going to go down to the local shop I have used in the past for our current HHR and see what they would charge to do all the swapping. They are all GM mechanics from a previous dealer. If it is too expensive I will just scrap the idea. I am not concerned with the speedo difference. I had a v6 Mustang that I put 17" Cobra wheels on, and never saw a major difference.

 

Why not just have the TPMS' that are on the 'new" wheels programmed for the car that they are going on? I run a set of summer wheels, for which I bought TMPS' and programmed them for the car. I used a procedure I found in these forums to program the sensors by putting the car into some sort of "learn mode' by pressing two buttons on the key fob. By the way, it occurred to me that I might have to do this again when I rotate the tires.

My stock steelies are 16" and now have winter tires and the pretty wheels are 17".