Put my summer rims/tires on the car last week and couldn't reset TPMS - iDrive comes back with "TPMS Failure". This 2008 535xi is a Canadian car and I'm told actual TPMS was mistakenly put in as standard equipment for Canada that year only and that other years before and after used the FTM system that detected wheel speed via ABS pulse rings.

My winter wheels are OE and have the original 10 year old sensors and the system was working fine. The summer wheels are BBS and use an aftermarket TPMS transmitter. I went to a local tire shop today and they said all wheel sensors are transmitting correctly.

I have tried resetting many times with the same result using the iDrive command.

Ideas aside from bending over at the stealer?

Nice to see the post moved to a dead forum page. Oh well.

Did the TPMS work on your summer tires last year?

Yes they did. As noted, shop said they're all transmitting too. Over the course of the winter, my left front would periodically say "low tire" as it has a slow leak. I could put the winters back on, but that would be a lot of work just to prove one way or the other.

Maybe I should bite the bullet and get set up with INPA or whatever else needed to chat with the car.

That seems a little.. odd to me. Ie if it worked last year, and they don't work this year, the simple answer is that the TPMS died. 10 years old on your factory ones also seem longer than normal life.

Anyways Unless something magical happened, then it still points to your TPMS. Yes the 2008 being an LCI car changed to the new sensors and not the wheel speed sensors. I just bought a set through tire rack when I got a new set of summer rims and flipped them over to winter tires. Cost about $220 USD for 4 that fit. I know that there are others that may be about as low as 160-180 but you'll have to comb through the threads.

Agreed, aside from the fact the tire shop tested it with two different TPMS testing tools and both said the wheel sensors were transmitting.

It's an annoyance, but I can live with the error message for now.