Ed Scherer

Interesting that you had a problem with the SmarTire sensor bands breaking; I never had a problem with those.

I was leaning toward the Orange P409S myself. I just find the price a little too cheap; I paid almost as much for each sensor for my wife's car's winter wheels as the whole P409S system!

I might just go ahead and get it. I really need to get new tires mounted ASAP; my fronts are to-the-scary-point gone.

Yup.

Something kind of interesting... I have—on a number of occasions—been on weird surfaces (unusually cupped roads, or some kind of bumpy irregularities, or something that made the car feel squirmy) where the feedback I was feeling through the car left me wondering if there was something wrong with a tire. It's nice being able to know that it's probably not a tire pressure problem when those things happen.

Yup.

Cole

I used one of those fancy $2 tire gauges down in NM a few years ago while fueling up our A6 Avant to drive up to Denver. Tire pressure was fine.

Just about an hour later at around 75mph on a very windy section of road, we had a front tire blow out!! Nothing left of the tire but the sidewalls. Hard to feel low profile tires going low at speed. Tpms would have saved us at least a tire and wheel. We were lucky it did not cost us more.

Ed Scherer

A little follow-up...

The Orange P409S didn't work out for me, because my Kinesis Supercup wheels use a really small valve stem; the hole is just too small and probably can't be enlarged sufficiently due to the geometry of the wheel. It might be possible to use one of the various valve stem TPMS adapters that's available or even band-clamp the sensors using an adaptor bracket, but that's a little too klugy for my taste.

Too bad.

If anybody wants mine (which was delivered to me at the beginning of November, 2011), I'll let it go for $80 plus shipping (that'll save you about $26 off ).