Steel Rims no tire pressure sensor and now wonky fuel gauge.

[Shawnson479]

Hi. New to the forums. I just had winter tires with steel rims put on my car. 195 55 r15s from the standard 205 40 r17. I opted to not have tire pressure sensors installed. Upon first getting in the car after they were installed I heard a buzzing and the low tire pressure sensor light came on which was to be expected. I realize this stays on until I put the original tires with the sensors back on in the summer which is fine. But I immediately cycled through the digital readout and noticed the litres till empty and litres per km all read maxed out. Then as I started driving the litres per mile started counting down from 99.9 until it got somewhere back to normal. But the litres till empty is now up around 790km for a tank which is way off as I usually get about 520 to 540. I'm not sure what is going on. Even the analogue fuel guage seems off now as ive driven 50km from a full tank and it hasn't moved a millimeter. Is it possible the tire pressure sensors have screwed this up or maybe the shop messed something up?

 

[dhminer]

Tpms is totally unrelated as far as I know. Is your speedometer reading correctly?

 

[Shawnson479]

Ya its reading correctly. I'm starting to think maybe some wiring got pinched or something by the shop when installing the tires? Nothing else really makes sense. 15 inch winter tires aren't gonna get me an extra 250 km of gas mileage I don't think. Lol

 

[dhminer]

Ya its reading correctly. I'm starting to think maybe some wiring got pinched or something by the shop when installing the tires? Nothing else really makes sense. 15 inch winter tires aren't gonna get me an extra 250 km of gas mileage I don't think. Lol

I’m not terribly familiar with the wiring back there but I’m not aware of anything they could do while changing wheels that’d do that. Maybe it’s just losing its mind. Have you disconnected the battery for a bit to reset things? I suspect just driving a bit will get it to correct itself, though

 

[Shawnson479]

I'll try disconnecting the battery and see if that helps. It just seems weird that the fuel needle would be off now though. I've never had any problems with the car yet except for the usual door blend actuator stuff. Thanks for the suggestions. I appreciate the advice.

 

[Sam4]

Hi. New to the forums. I just had winter tires with steel rims put on my car. 195 55 r15s from the standard 205 40 r17. I opted to not have tire pressure sensors installed. Upon first getting in the car after they were installed I heard a buzzing and the low tire pressure sensor light came on which was to be expected. I realize this stays on until I put the original tires with the sensors back on in the summer which is fine. But I immediately cycled through the digital readout and noticed the litres till empty and litres per km all read maxed out. Then as I started driving the litres per mile started counting down from 99.9 until it got somewhere back to normal. But the litres till empty is now up around 790km for a tank which is way off as I usually get about 520 to 540. I'm not sure what is going on. Even the analogue fuel guage seems off now as ive driven 50km from a full tank and it hasn't moved a millimeter. Is it possible the tire pressure sensors have screwed this up or maybe the shop messed something up?

I think with the change of rolling diameter, you confused it's brain power. something to do with Pi...and 50km is like a couple liters of petrol - that's hard to see on the gauge.

 

[dhminer]

I think with the change of rolling diameter, you confused it's brain power. something to do with Pi...and 50km is like a couple liters of petrol - that's hard to see on the gauge.

Also worth pointing out that the gauge isn’t terribly accurate to begin with

 

[Capri to ST]

How is your battery? A lot of weird electrical things can go wrong with these cars when the battery gets weak, and a lot of them don't seem to be logically related. If your battery's more than 4 years old I would replace it, because it needs it, and if it's less I would have it checked.

 

[Shawnson479]

It's the original battery so I think it's going on 7 years old. Ya maybe it's time to replace.