Hella TPMS

[jage]

When your rear tire loses communication is it the driver or passenger side?

Does everyone having problems have the Diesel?

[yvrr]

So far, the problems are with the right (passenger side) rear with one report of the spare giving problems. We have a V-10. As mentioned earlier, our system worked fine for 6-8 months without a problem at all.

[Greg In Austin]

We have the problem and we have a diesel.

I talked to SMB TX on Friday to find out where the main piece of the Hella is and thus the beginnings of the antenna. So I will take a look at it tomorrow and make sure the antenna is fully deployed.

[Joanna]

I have this problem as well.
I hate this system; I get signals that the sensor is out on the passenger front and rear tires under all kinds of conditions. I've begun ignoring it since I have no clue what to do.
When I first mentioned it to Austin, they said, oh, California puts those on, we don't do them.
Talk about high and dry! PLUS it's still yelling at me.

PS. I don't know how to program a digital clock, much less this product.

[yvrr]

The beeping from a lost transmission is kinda hard to ignore. You get the same sound when you air down. That is why I put a simple on/off switch on mine so that I can turn it off when I air down (and now when it loses communications).

[Greg In Austin]

We have the problem and we love the system.

When it beeps, we hit the check button once and it cycles through and silences it. We do this ONLY when it is a communication error chirp, and we do it to also check the other tires for both pressure and temp.

I am confident that working with the antenna will solve the problem.

For those with the problem, have you checked to make sure the your antenna is fully deployed?

Have you checked the function with the antenna fully deployed in a different manner?

.

[John and Dana]

Greg,

I to like the systems if and would like to get it to work reliably. Where was your antenna located? I looked under the dash and was not able to locate anything that was obviously part of the system. Can you tell me what I should be looking for?

Thanks
John

[charlie56]

John
Pull off the panel that is located at the drivers knees. There is one tab in each of the corners of the panel. It almost feels like you are breaking the panel, but it does pop off. You should (at least in mine) see 2 fuse blocks. Next to the one on the left is a black receiver unit. About the size of a deck of cards (Jack) and it says Hella on it. On the top side of the unit are two sets of plugs and one thicker black wire lead. The thicker lead is the antenna. On mine, the wire antenna is coiled up and stuffed back amongst all of the other wires. I’m not experiencing any loss of signal, so for now I am leaving it alone.

By the way: When I started this thread I was looking for the Tire Rotation procedure that is alluded to in the Hella manual. After talking to Hella, there is no special procedure. You have to follow the basic configuration procedure that is in the manual. Note that it is MUCH easier with two people. One outside deflating the tires and one inside listening for the beep.

I also installed the “air-down” shut off switch that Jack did. It works great. If you do this mod, make sure you interrupt the power going from the battery to the receiver, not the wires between the receiver and the display unit.

[Greg In Austin]

The Hella "brain" is a black box about the size of a pack of cigarettes (I wish there were a better comparison object).

My problem is that even though I found IT, I cannot figure out which is the antenna wire.

Our black box was located on top of the big chunk of styrafoam right behind the panel under the steering column.

There are two wires I think could be the antenna, and neither is very long.
One connects to what I think is the hot side of the switch for our air compressor. The other is grounded to the frame. For some reason I was only looking at the black wires.

I suspect it is the second wire.

Has anyone said what color the antenna wire is???

[John and Dana]

Hey guys thanks for the info. I will mess with it tomorrow. We have another trip planned this weekend so I will let you know how things go after I play with the antenna.

Thanks
John