Install/activate TPSM sensors on my RS5

A5/S5/RS5
#1

Hey all,

I’ve gone through 2 sets of tires on my car from a tire leaking on the highway and then ultimately failing and shredding itself in two separate occasions. If my car had TPSM it would have saved me both times as i would have been alerted when the tire was low on pressure as its hard to feel this by hand with such low profile tires.

My 2013 RS5 didnt come with the TPSM installed and I brought my car to the Audi dealership to figure out how to install/activate these sensors.

Long story short they couldn’t figure it out and sent me on my way after having to pay 3+hours of shop time.

Any idea guys on how to get these sensors installed and activated? I know i can go aftermarket but id rather not as TPSM is a feature available to the car that’s just not activated.

Pics for attention :smiley:

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#2

You will have the TPMS calculator as it is standard everywhere, but you want sensors as I understand. I am pretty sure you have the former and the later does not exist as far as know. It is pretty exact in my experience as when you change tires without resetting after a while it will give you a SCARE (beep) and heart racing. But I guess it does not work on sudden pressure drops (over less than 1000 kms)

#3

There are two different types of tpms, direct and indirect. Direct tpms use four sensors, one located in each wheel, to notify when you’ve lost pressure. The direct tpms also specifies which tire is low. Indirect tpms uses the abs speed sensor to notify that you’re losing tire pressure in general. The speed sensor detects the rpm of all four wheels, and when one has lower pressure than the others the rpm drops in comparison and then your tpms light comes on. The main drawback from indirect is that you can’t specify which tire is losing air, and if all four are losing pressure you still wont get a notification as the rpm of each wheel is consistent.

Unfortunately, we have an indirect tpms in the RS5. I do believe that the 2018+ now have a direct tpms, but I’m not 100% certain of that. I found this out when researching new wheels and was going to buy new sensors and couldn’t find them anywhere. The one plus to indirect tpms is that I didn’t have to spend $100+ on each sensor (assuming they’d be that much because Audi).

That being said, I did a quick search on aftermarket direct tpms options and there are a few to choose from. From the looks of it they basically have four sensors that are installed into the valve stem that relay to a display. I’m not sure of their reliability, but nevertheless there are options.

#4

So it’s about 5 months on from initial @nohrt post… As another Canadian B8.5 RS5 owner, I think the Indirect TPMS is not activated at all on Canadian market B8.5 vehicles, but I wonder, and I think… that USA market cars might have it enabled by default. Can some of you confirm? Does the “reset” capability appear in the MMI menus? It seems my car has the IAT code for ABS so should be able to have TPMS enabled, and if that is correct I would like to do it. Checking tire pressures manually is still something I do regularly, especially with these big wheels (and no spare), but having a secondary system also monitoring would be great.

#5

Yes it shows in the MMI menu. Once you manually check all of the tires for correct pressure you do the reset and it supposedly knows the correct tire rolling circumfrence to detect a low tire. If you have Vagcom I would think you can enable it. Google search it just in case you have to get it from the Green menu first. If you’re not familiar with the Green menu you will first need to enable it with Vagcom.

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#6

Yes, I did recently buy a Ross Tech VCDS device and I found a detailed procedure online for TPMS enabling. I had enabled Green Menu previously so I followed it all. Now working from MMI as hoped for. Thanks for your pointers. If @nohrt is still around, you can get this turned on too.

#7

Hey!

When i initially enabled the TPSM with VCDS the dash was giving me a bunch of errors afterwords. So i figured i needed some missing module.

Are you saying this is not the case? I just needs to enable TPSM with VCDS then configure it with the green menu?

Can you provide the procedure you did for enable TPSM and what you did within green menu so i can follow?

If this work, i owe you big time.

#8

Hi Chris,

I followed the procedure as documented on this audienthusiasts.com web page: http://www.audienthusiasts.com/VagComABS.html but I can give you a summary of my own notes that I wrote to carry to the car to implement. By the way, the instructions say to start with the changes in the Green Menu first, but perhaps it really does not matter.

In the Hidden Green menu, choose the items:

• car
• cardevicelist
• find RDK (might say tire pressure monitoring)
• Click to enable
• RETURN/BACK button
• carmenuoperation
• Scroll to find the Tire air pressure control
• Click, scroll to set 5 and Click
• RETURN/BACK button
• Reset 3-finger salute

Now with VCDS

• 03-ABS
• Security (61378) Brake elect Security access
• 07-Coding
• Long coding
• Byte 1 Bit 3 to “1” or click “Tire pressure monitoring” checkbox
• EXIT top of window
• Back at Long Coding verify new value has changed
• Do it!
• Back to 17-Instruments
• 07-Coding
• Long coding
• Byte 4 Bit 0 set to 1 or “Tire pressure monitoring” checkbox
• EXIT
• Do it!

Now check in your MMI
#9

Hey David,

Thanks for the detailed instructions! I think i have enabled it as i see the option in the MMI to store tire pressures!

wow huge thanks for the help :smiley:

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