It’s the not the first time it’s been said, but today I have to agree.
About three months ago, I punctured one of the tires on my car after hitting a very aggressive and unforgiving pothole. The puncture immediately activated the car’s tire pressure warning system, which would activate a little light on the dashboard and give me a “tire pressure too low” warning on the screen. I took the car to my local Pep Boys tire repair center and had the whole tire replaced. However, the warning light stayed on. Things were a little hectic in my life at the time, so I never really got around to working out why the light hadn’t gone off, I checked the pressure and everything seemed to be ok.
Jump forward a few months and we arrive at today, when I finally get around to taking my car into the dealership to have the problem looked at. The man at VW, told me that it was quite common that the pressure sensors could be damaged when replacing the tire and that it might need to be replaced. Of course my instant thought was that I was probably going to end up $500 out of pocket to stop some stupid light coming on, but it was worth getting fixed. A couple of hours later I get a call from the man. “Hello Mr. Tonkin, I have some good news. We checked all the sensors and the computer and we can’t find any faults. We did check the tire pressure though and it was 10 PSI low on all the tires. We just topped it up and the light went off”. I felt so embarrassed and actually apologized for wasting his time. I can only imagine the ridiculing I must have been getting in the service dept.
The silver lining is that they must have thought I was mentally challenged and felt sorry for me, because they waived the usual $57 diagnostic charge. I guess it would have been a little unfair for them to charge me $57 to put air in the tires.
I still think they must have reset something, because I know I checked the pressure several times and I don’t know why I would have set it to 20PSI, maybe I am mentally challenged?!
Anyway, it’s all fixed and no money spent….just loads of unnecessary wear and tear on my tires for the last few months!