I recently bought aftermarket TPMS sensors off of eBay for my '09 Sport and took them to a local tire shop to get them installed and synced. Unfortunately, the tire place (Ken Towery Tires) called and said that, while their machine got a response from the sensors (they worked?), that they wouldn't sync up to my car. My TPMS light had come on, so I assumed I had a bad sensor. The guy at Ken Towery was super nice about it and suggested I go to the dealership to see if they could sync them (But I'm sure this would be stupid expensive because dealers).

So my question is: Are these just dodgy sensors that are not working as advertised (the eBay listing says they are compatible with my car), or could there be something wrong with my car that is causing the sync to fail? Is this a problem others have dealt with? I'm trying to get a refund on eBay, but I want to make sure that is the problem first.

Is this a problem any of you have had? I couldn't find any thread that sounded like someone has dealt with bad replacements.

 

Can you explain what you mean by the term "sync"?

Did they program new ID's into the computer or did they clone the existing sensor ID's?
It sounds like new sensors with different ID's, but it seems like they didn't put them in the computer.

edit: Also didn't see, but that link showed new sensor ID's, not clones. So they need computer programmed.

 

I assume that, yes, they need to be programmed. Is this something that most tire places should be able to do? Do I need to got a stealership?I was about to send them back to the eBay merchant, but if it was just incompetence at the tire place... Well, then that's a whole other story...

 

Well I expect a tire place to be able to program a large variety of sensors. Them telling you to go to the dealer seems to indicate they can't do it.