Barbie Pitts

I bought my 2017 Honda civic Sport Touring hatch back brand new a few months ago from a honda dealership in San Jose, California. It seems that everytime i drive on the highway above 55mph for an extended amount of time (I'm guessing more than 30 miles) the low tire pressure warning comes on. I've checked my tires every time this happens and they are within 1-2 PSI of the recommended spec. I've brought my car to the dealership 3 times for this. The last time I brought it they said they checked all tires for leaks/foreign objects, hard re-calibrated the sensor and told me what they set the sensor tire pressure to be. it came on again (4th time) this weekend and I am feeling extremely frustrated. I spoke with the service manager this morning on the phone and he told me to bring the car in again to have it looked at, because i "must have something in my tire". At this point, I don't know what to do anymore. Is anyone else experiencing this with their light? Is it a known issue? Possibly a defective sensor? They talk to me like I'm an idiot, probably because I'm a girl, and the service manager assumed that everytime I went in they put air in my tires and sent me home....which is not the case. I'm smart enough to understand that the tires are fine by their standards, which the last service tech reassured me last time I left with the car.

Please help. =[

2x0

What pressure are they set at?

I am surprised they haven't tried putting in a different set of sensors yet....

Barbie Pitts

The first time the sensor was set really high, (41 PSI) I believe.
The third time they set the front tires to 35 and the rear tires to 37 if I remember correctly. I contacted Honda Corporate this morning and opened a case with them, because 4 times is kind of unacceptable in my opinion. And the dealership really didn't say or imply that they had a plan to replace the sensor. Simply implied that I either must be reading the PSI incorrectly, or that something is wrong with my tire. (Doesn't really make sense)

2x0

Wait, the sensor or the tire was set to 41psi?

I didn't think that the sensors were adjustable to what pressure they set off the warning light. Just the factory preset which is around 25psi or so.

Either way, yeah it's not rocket science to check tire pressure, and it should not set off a warning anywhere above 30psi. Something is wrong with one of your sensors.

Barbie Pitts

The sensor was calibrated to be 41PSI the first time i brought it in. (Or so they said). Not really sure how it could've ended up being set to that...but yeah. Hopefully Honda Corporate steps in and has an action plan...and speaks to their service staff or at least the service manager.

JRCivic1

Checking the online parts system, it appears that the TPMS works much like that found in the 9th Gen Civic Si... a simple system without actual individual pressure sensors mounted inside each wheel... it used the wheel speed sensor to compare rotations/mile to the other wheels and if one is "faster" than the others, it triggers the system to alert the driver to a "LOW" tire. OP, can you verify that there are rubber or metal valve stems in your wheels ??? If you can bend them by gently pushing the valve stem from the side, then it is rubber and cannot be a TPMS sensor. Another indicator would be if the system has a map/display of all four tires indicating their specific air pressures. If you do have this, then there must be individual sensors. If all you get is a warning light and no pressure is displayed... it is likely the simple system.

nsxmatt

Your car does not have a "sensor" on the wheel, like was said they read based on rotation. What sounds like to me is you possibly have a bad tire or one with a slipped belt causing the diameter to change and cause the light to come on once up to hwy speeds.

DaIll1

They alarm for both too low and too high. If they are inflated near the high alarm, when you drive, the heat build-up will set it off. The suggested pressure (label in door) is there for a reason.

Barbie Pitts

Update:

I've now taken the car to the dealership a total of six times and they still have not replaced any sensors or fixed the car.
Last time they did an alignment and drove my car 200 miles and said they couldn't reproduce the issue and sent me home. the first time i drove my car on the highway for an extended amount of time (around 50 miles) the light came back on and i brought it in. Now they want to swap my tires with one of their employees tires and give me the car back to drive again to see if it comes back on.

I honestly have no idea what to do and this all sounds so ridiculous to me. They're telling me that Techline and Honda will not let them replace any of the sensors or modules until they rule out.

Guys, what do I do? I've never had to deal with this before.

tech8

As two other posters already pointed out, your car doesn’t use tire pressure sensors mounted inside the tires like some earlier generations.

It is an indirect TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System), it uses the existing VSA wheel speed sensors to monitor and compare tire characteristics while driving.

If your tires are okay, the cause may be due to the TPMS system misinterpreting different driving conditions. There was a service bulletin issued related to the 2014 Civics, where the "Low Tire Pressure/TPMS Indicator Is On With No DTC or With VSA DTC 151-11" DTC is Diagnostic Trouble Code. The previous fix was to update the software on the VSA modulator-control unit. However, since your model year is more current, the software on your car's unit is probably a later version, etc.

There may be an issue with the VSA modulator-control unit or its software.

On a side note: Any time you inflate, change, or rotate one or more of the tires, you need to recalibrate the system. -- See this link: Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) 2017 Honda Civic-Sedan Honda Owners Site

Barbie Pitts

Yes, I understand they arent sensors actually mounted on the tires and that it needs to be reset every time a tire pressure is actually changed. I was using the sensors as a broad term, because if it’s a bad sensor they should try replacing a sensor for debugging purposes, not tell me that there’s nothing they can do for me. Im an engineer and I understand that somewhere there is a hardware component feeding info into the software to determine “air pressure” whatever it’s sudo or not. I’m just so taken aback that they haven’t tried replacing any sensors and keep trying to blame the wheels without actually doing much to rule what what’s causing the problem...and then having the audacity to ask me to let a sales rep borrow my brand new wheels so they can try his wheels out on my car.

I contacted another dealership and haven’t heard back yet, I’m also going to open a complaint with the NCDS.

RJNickel

I am facing the exact same issue with my 2012 Honda Civic LX and this is the only relevant post that I could find. I know this reply is after several years, but I have read all the replies here in detail. I would really like to know if there was a final resolution to the problem. Were the sensors replaced entirely at all?

kawboy636

I had a similar problem with my 2018 Civic. I prefer to run at pressures higher than recommended. The TPMS light does not only come on when the pressure is to low. If the tire is overinflated (or heats up and the pressure rises too much) the warning light will also trip. On my car there is a recalibration option thru the radio interface. I set my tire pressure then recalibrate to the current pressure and the TPMS will self adjust.