Winter wheels and tyres

Please advise your readers of potential problem with swapping over winter wheels on newer cars with tyre pressure monitoring systems. I purchased a new Mercedes-Benz C-Class in July this year. I asked my local Mercedes-Benz dealer to put on my existing winter wheels and tyres (official products purchased from the dealer as a package in October 2012 for my then car a Class C180 Coupe (W204 model). I was shocked to learn that these wheels and tyres are not compatible with my new car. The tyre load ratings are different and the tyre pressure monitoring system on the car is flashing up a yellow dashboard warning light as there are different sensors in my winter wheels. I am now left with a set of winter wheels and tyres (which cost me £1250 at the time) which are effectively useless to me.

Asked on 3 November 2015 by DerekG

Answered by Honest John

Other people have brought this up. There are two types of TPMS system. Most use pressure sensing valves and these cause the problems. The better systems used by BMW and Mazda measure rotational distortion so are not affected by a change of wheels.

Tags: winter tyres

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