Why Does My TPMS Light Turn ON In Cold Weather?

During this cold weather, if you witness frequent tpms light popping on your dash, you are not alone. It is common to lose tire pressure in cold weather. But why is that? The answer lies in the characteristics of molecules with temperature changes. Higher temperature delivers more kinetic energy to the molecules and they tend to move faster and away from each other. A lower temperature reduces the kinetic energy of the molecules and they tend to come closer. When air molecules enclosed in a tire experience cold temperature they occupy less space in the tire and create a condition of low tire pressure. 

Typically for every 10 Deg Celsius (18 Deg F) the pressure in the tire drops by about 1-2 Psi. During the winter season, the difference between the day and night temperature can be as high as 40 Deg Fahrenheit. That means the pressure in the tire can reduce by 4 Psi at night. Most of the tpms systems trigger the sensor when there is a 25% drop in tire pressure. It is easy to get the tpms sensor triggered when your tire is already under recommended pressure.

Winter weather comes with a dire need to check your tires regularly. This could be a headache because who wants to check their tire pressure with the gauge every morning? No one! But if you have Cerebrum Smart Sensors installed in your tires then you can easily check the pressure and get notified of big losses in pressure from the Cerebrum mobile application. That’s not all, the app gives you the recommended pressure for your tires and a real-time pressure displayed on the mobile screen helps to fill the pressure to an optimum level.

It is normal to lose 1-3 Psi tire pressure in a month. Combined with the day and night temperature difference in winters this could be a big loss in pressure. Such fluctuations in tire pressure could affect many metrics of the tire and the overall life of your tires is affected. Low tire pressure reduces the braking performance by reducing the traction force at the contact patch, increases the CO2 emission by the engine, and drops the gas mileage. On average, for every 1 psi drop in pressure the vehicle loses 0.2% in gas mileage. 

So, with low tire pressure, you are indirectly losing money and polluting the environment by emitting more CO2 into the atmosphere. That’s a lot of losses just from improper tire pressure, right? Given the current impact of global warming on our environment it has become necessary to act at an individual level and save our environment. Cerebrum Smart Sensors make it simple to track these metrics. With the convenience of a mobile application, you can track dollar losses, tire warranty losses, and CO2 emission per year based on the current tire pressure. That’s the power of intelligence, the power of Cerebrum.