I bought the 2016 EX new last week. After about 250 miles of driving it around, the TPMS light went off. I checked the pressure cold and the readings were fine. I pressed the calibration button while in park, but the light came back on about 15 miles later. Is there a known issue with the TPMS sensors? I didn't check the spare tire pressure, should I do that?

 

I wish I had a dollar for every time I've explained this here. The '15 and up Fit uses an "indirect" TPMS system that uses the ABS sensors to compare the rolling speed, and hence the effective diameter of the four tires. A soft tire will run faster than the other three, and trip the TPMS sensor.


The good thing about this system is there are NO expensive, failure-prone sensors in the tires to replace, and no expensive dealer calibration required. You can swap wheels, run snow tires, whatever.


The down side is that this system is more sensitive to false positives (slipping on wet roads, aggressive cornering). The calibration procedure is a bit more involved than just pushing the button. See page 336 of the owner's manual for the complete procedure.


Oh yes, checking the spare will do nothing. Read the manual.

 

Thanks for some background. Regarding the calibration procedure, the manual basically says to put it into park and hold the calibration button until the low pressure indicator flashes. Am I missing something?

Copied from the manual:

Before calibrating the TPMS:
• Set the cold tire pressure in all four tires.
2 Checking Tires P. 382
Make sure:
• The vehicle is at a complete stop.
• Continuously variable transmission models
The shift lever is in (P .
• All models
The ignition switch is in ON (w *

Press and hold the TPMS button until the low
tire pressure/TPMS indicator blinks twice,
indicating the calibration process has begun.
• If the low tire pressure/TPMS indicator does
not blink, confirm the above conditions
then press and hold the TPMS button again.
• The calibration process finishes
automatically.

 

The calibration process requires about 30 minutes of driving at 30-60 MPH to complete (see the next page).


To be honest, My TPMS light had to be reset once, when I picked up the car new (the dealer did it), and it's never come on since, even when the book says it will. Not even swapping between summer tires and snow tires set it off, so I've never had to reset mine.

 

My TPMS light went off too, on the first 50 mile freeway drive when the car was new. I reset it according to the manual. It hasn't come on since. My theory is that the new tires relax a bit and change their rolling radius.

Frankly, TPMS is an poorly-thought-out requirement brought on by the Ford Explorer/Firestone scandal. Rather than blame Firestone for providing substandard tires and Ford for specifying too-low inflation pressures they decided to blame an imaginary problem and make us all pay. My hat is off to Honda for figuring out a software solution even if it is an occasional annoyance.

 

I like this solution much better than the battery powered sensors in each tire, like my '09 Fit had. I can swap wheels (I have 4 mounted snow tires I run in the winter), and I didn't have to buy expensive TPMS sensors for the winter wheels, nor have the dealer calibrate car to the sensors twice a year.


I also had one sensor die at three years on the old Fit. $75 plus labor to replace it!

 

My TPMS light went on a couple days ago. Checked the tire pressure. It was down a bit, so I added air to all four tires, calibrated the TPMS and that was that.

I recall it went on when I switched to snow tires in December. Having the snow tires removed today, so will see if it goes on again (2016 Fit LX MT).

 

Hit 'recalibrate' once the summer tires are bolted on and all should be well. (as well as can be expected)

 

Plan to do that after work. Need to stop at a local gas station where I can check pressure on each tire and add air if necessary.

There was a backlog of folks trying to get their snow tires off and sometimes the guys who do the tire work get hasty in an effort to keep up.

 

Americas tire can do most TPMS sensors FYI.. Cheaper than the dealer..

 

That's only helpful on cars that have tire pressure sensors in the wheels.
This thread seems to deal with cars that do not.

 

Let me guess, your previous car was either a Model 'A' or a Model 'T', am I right?

 

this technology has been used by other brands over a decade ago.. and encountered the same problems as honda is now. which means, honda has not improved much on the technology to 'figure out' a better software.

 

Fine, but Honda has at least hit upon a way to comply with the stupid federal TPMS regulation without adding complexity to the car. Those wheel pressure sensors were a favorite thing for tire shops to break.

The light has gone off once in the first 3000 miles of driving. It seems to be pretty well-behaved from my point of view.

 

So far two things on my 2016 Honda Fit have been disappointing.

Wiper Blades...just bad. Drag, Chatter...problem.
and secondly...
I've taken two longer drives...100's of miles and hours of driving and both times the TPMS light ended up illuminating.
Which is a pain, because on a longer drive that often means being on the freeway or in the middle of nowhere, and even if you are 95% sure it's a false positive, you STILL HAVE TO STOP AND CHECK. Can't afford to assume it's nothing .

As I said, this has happened to me twice...only on longer straight drives.
If I recalibrate and reset, I can go weeks, of regular driving, stop and go, mixed highway and city with the light being fine. Not illuminating.

But so far? Every long road trip I've taken has resulted in my having to pull over to confirm the failure of the TPMS.
I've even bought a special lighted digital gauge just for The Fit. Because you never know where or when this is going to happen.

I kind of wish Honda would of just stuck with the regular actual inflation based system, instead of the evidently failure prone, indirect.
My 2010 Gen 2, never gave me false positives.

NOT what you want from an indicator supposedly designed to help you.

 

Agree the OEM blades stink. Replaced mine with Bosch heavy duty winter blades (I live in a cold snowy area) and they're terrific.

As to the TPMS, that's a federal requirement so auto manufacturers have no choice.

I wonder if your valve stems are faulty. I had that problem with my previous vehicle.

 

I've had a couple of false positives on my VW, which uses a similar system. Yes, it's annoying. However the alternative is a couple hundred dollars of easily broken sensors for which you need to account if you ever change your wheels. Honda did the right thing.

 

Haven't had any issue with my TPMS. If anything, I don't think it's sensitive enough. I knew I had a flat, but limped home and the TPMS light never came on. Drove at least a mile on a flat at less than 25 mph and it never blinked.

 

That's correct operation, it cannot turn on the light that way.

Quote from your owners manual: "The system does not monitor the tires when driving at low speed."

 

I don't know if I can be too happy or say Honda did the right things when evidently we have TPMS system prone to false positive, that also doesn't monitor the tires at low speeds.

I think paramount and key to a TPMS system should be reliability and consistency.