Tyre Pressure Monitoring System

[DrewW]

I bought a $46 eBay cheapie ( four wheels only) four years ago. Brilliant!! Just bought another set for my son, $33.58!! My $500 Tyredog bought in 2011 has died and will not be replaced. My cheapie has survived Googs Track, the Simmo and Flinders ranges, probably well over 10000kms of corrugations with no issues. Not that I needed telling, but when I got a blowout on the Finke road the alarm almost deafened me. At almost give away cost what does one have to lose?

[KymJ]

I bought a $46 eBay cheapie ( four wheels only) four years ago. Brilliant!! Just bought another set for my son, $33.58!! My $500 Tyredog bought in 2011 has died and will not be replaced. My cheapie has survived Googs Track, the Simmo and Flinders ranges, probably well over 10000kms of corrugations with no issues. Not that I needed telling, but when I got a blowout on the Finke road the alarm almost deafened me. At almost give away cost what does one have to lose?

Can I ask which one you recently bought? I'm in the same boat and there are quite a few cheapies out there.

[Garc]

I’m on my second set of this type. This is not the exact one I bought but looks exactly the same.

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/283820200815

Why second? Because I cross threaded one when putting it on. That’s a drawback of externals but you would still be taking a cap off to put tyres up and down. I don’t use the locking rings and have not had a problem over thousands of kms on and off road. I have a second set I use two of for my caravan with the head unit plugged into the rear cig plug.

If getting this type it’s best to get one with bright colour LCD rather than the grey reflective type as they are hard to see in daylight

I take mine off when I’m in the city to save batteries. Have not had to change batteries in tyre units

[Brownie]

I’m on my second set of this type. This is not the exact one I bought but looks exactly the same.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/283820200815

With this type of cheapie, how easy is it to set a second lower alarm point? Ideally I would like to have an alarm point for highway cruising, but a much lower alarm tigger point once I am aired down.

This ability to quickly change alarm points does seem an advantage of the Masten units. I am wondering, these units are so cheap, could you buy two and have one set for highway pressures and the other set for off road aired down pressures - just plug in the appropriate unit. Am I dreamin....

[HeavyPizzaz]

I used one of these on Plenty Highway / Chambers Pillar trips and pretty quick and easy to change the lowest alarm setting. The device worked well https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/383562746214


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[benckj]

If you go for a cheap unit look for decent tyre valve threads & metal body. On the cheap unit I bought it leaked air through the threads and even internal body on one stem. It actually caused me tyre issues rather than preventing.

[insect_eater]

I too bought a cheapie from ebay about 5 years ago, and they have afforded great peace of mind when travelling at speed. I've only activated one once, when I instantly deflated a tyre on an innocuous stone on a gentle gravel road. I bought these after looking at many of the options and found that many of the brand-name options looked identical to the cheap ones on ebay. Steelmate are the trade name of one of the major manufacturers (EBAT) who seem to be the suppliers to many of the brands now available. Just scroll through the ebay pictures, and you will see pictures identical to models that cost twice (or three times) as much with a brand name on them - I suspect that they are all EBAT.

Mine are fiddly to drop to another tyre pressure - I have to reset to a new level, which takes a minute. However, as mentioned above if you need to frequently change this setting repeatedly over a day it would be a pain, and maybe an option that allows a push-button change is warranted. If Im deflating for a short section of slow ground, I feel the TPMS is irrelevant, and I simply slide the display out of the power socket a little to disconnect, rather than reset to another level. I use them mainly to reduce the risk at speed - either of rollover or destroying a slowly deflating tyre from heat.

I run without the lock-ring, and simply replace with normal caps for round-town use, or where I feel there is a risk of theft overnight.

[Hazpet]

Heavy Pizzaz. If you had two of the solar units and used one for the car. Would the second have the transmission distance to work on a caravan.
Peter

[Garc]

Can set upper and lower limits for pressure and temp.

Good option re getting two

With this type of cheapie, how easy is it to set a second lower alarm point? Ideally I would like to have an alarm point for highway cruising, but a much lower alarm tigger point once I am aired down.

This ability to quickly change alarm points does seem an advantage of the Masten units. I am wondering, these units are so cheap, could you buy two and have one set for highway pressures and the other set for off road aired down pressures - just plug in the appropriate unit. Am I dreamin....