slobrewer

Hi folks, new to Rennlist and just picked up a 2007 Targa 4S with around 120k miles. Mechanically sound but with a few minor cosmetic issues and a punchlist of minor issues to address, which is fine with me as it’ll be a daily driver. Just before I got it the PO said the battery died due to leaving an interior light on and it ended up popping up some warnings. He had his shop clear the airbag warning light and they told him that the tire pressure sensors would reconnect after 30-40 miles. Well I’m a few hundred miles into ownership on this car and still dealing with the pressure system warning message. I still get “TPC inactive System learning” on each restart.

I’ve done some searching both in these forums and elsewhere online and it seems like most people deal with this message after changing tires or when a battery dies on one of the sensors. I think it’s completely likely that the batteries are in fact dead and it needs new sensors. But is there any easy troubleshooting step I’m missing that I should try before taking it down to a reputable tire shop? Thanks!

cloud9blue

need new sensors

Wagon Master

For your first step, I would suggest you visit your trusted tire shop and have them scan your wheels with their scanner to confirm whether or not your sensors are functioning. Takes no more than 5 minutes. With that knowledge, you can proceed onto the next step.

slobrewer

cloud9blue,
Thanks for taking the time to respond. That's what I suspected. I think it's either a coincidence that they stopped working when the battery died or perhaps the seller wasn't exactly being forthcoming.

slobrewer

Cool, yeah, headed down to my favorite local tire shop to have them check the sensors.

slobrewer

Hmmmm, my tire shop says all four sensors are sending strong signals. They then hooked up their TPMS computer to the OBD2 port and it failed with a message that it was unable to detect the vehicle VIN. So not sure what’s going on there.

I tried the other thing I’ve read online, which is to drop the tire pressure by 10 PSI in each of the tires and then refill them and try the connection process over again. I put on about 20 miles after that but no connection yet.

Open to ideas before I head down to the dealer to see what’s going on. I figured I’ll try to find the TPMS system in the front and unplug and replug it back in to see if that has an effect.

— Dave
2007 997.1 Targa 4S in Guards Red

jamesinger

This might sound stupid but you kinda don't have anything to lose. IDK why but this dude drove my wife's car in reverse down a street for about 500' or so and it tripped whatever needed to be tripped for it to work.
I think in total, it was like 1 block. Her story was that her car got towed and when we turned it on every warning light on the planet was going bananas. The TPMS was one of the things freaking out.