I took my car to the tire shop, which is Sam's club. They have taken off al tires and inspected them for punctures and did not find anything. Inflated them to proper pressure levels. Told me to drive around for a day or two and it should reset. It didn't happen. So, I perused forums and found about TPMS reset button. But pressing it for 3 seconds, while the engine running or not, or even tried while driving, didn't do that 3 second slow flash and then reset.
I checked around the price of replacing the TPMS just in case it is what went bonkers, but $750+ figure I see, is very disheartening for an almost 10 years old vehicle. Yet, this is my wife's car and she doesn't "LIKE" driving around with a trouble light on.
Am I missing something about the reset procedure? Or is it the dealership time ?

 

Individual TPMS sensors fail all the time, and very well could be what happened. I've seen this happen much more often than the brain actually failing. You can get aftermarket sensors that will work with the stock computer, (Sams should be aware of which ones work) but you will need to figure out which frequency range they operate in.

 

Is there any way to find out which sensor failed ( I mean which tire's sensor) ? Also how do you determine the frequency they operate? I searched for 2014 scion xb tpms sensors and I find them in many different frequency levels, in places like ebay and auto part retailers, claiming it will work with my scion.

 

Would either have to go to the dealer or a tire shop (like discount) that can access them. There are also some programmers you can buy but the good ones are pricey.

 

This is the video you saw and tried??

 

Yes I sure did and never see the TPMS light blink

 

Great.
The easiest way to fix a bad sensor is to replace all 4... but how can you know which one is bad? Here's my guess...
How about taking off one wheel at a time and putting the spare on, then taking it out for a drive. When you get far enough away from the wheel left behind (200 yds should do it), stop and reset the system. If the light goes out, the wheel at home has the problem sensor.

It might work - if only one sensor is bad... at least it's free to try.

 

good idea! Could very well be that one of TPMS units have low battery.

 

The blink should have occurred the very first time that (at least) one of your sensors failed. The blinking light should also occur with each subsequent start of the engine. The blinking light only blinks for several minutes, then goes solid. So you may have a different problem than tire senors because you never saw the blinking nor solid yellow TPMS warning light. There is a TPMS brain that might go bad because I see used ones for sale on Ebay. Not that I'm suggesting you throw parts at it.

I have an xb tire and wheel pdf. Unfortunately it's first generation but it might be similar to the second generation. Let me know if you want it.

 

Now that I joined this conversation, our 2009 xb is getting the same symptoms on the long trip i'm on.
Starts fine, after a while it starts blinking, then stays solid.
The reset hasn't worked yet, so I suspect at least one battery in the TPMS has given up the ghost, as the tire pressures are fine.

I may just try to replace the battery - which is a trick in itself, but I am a glutton for punishment, so...
I have come across several video's on how to replace the battery and after I find an offending TPMS, I will see if I can do what others already have done.

I will need some luck as my soldering skills are poor.

 

Not sure about the originals but new replacements are sealed with epoxy. Brings new meaning to "no user serviceable parts". Can't even change the battery.

 

Anybody know of a good, cheap tpms scan tool that's scion compatible? I had new sensors installed but the shop didn't do the relearning process. They just installed the sensors. My dash light still blinks/ then goes solid after a few minutes.

 

The shop was supposed to register your new TPMS's with the car as part of the process.

The is the reason I am now trying to replace the batteries in our original set. With no change in reg numbers, the computer should recognize them and I should just be able to do a reset???
I ordered the , but they will take a long time to get here - 3 to 5 weeks - so they are probably coming from China or Japan or ????
EDIT: See post #15 below for the correct battery
The CR2450 batteries are a slightly different chemistry to the BR2450's. Which gives a slightly higher temperature capability I think... 60C vs 125C. Hope that is enough. 60C is 140F.
Just realized a bit late, that I could have got them from Mouser dot com. Though the tabs may not be right.
The housing says Pacific - Made in Japan : The label with the green writing on it says Pacific - Mexico. So who knows were the parts came from...

In the meantime I took one out and dismantled it to see how hard it would be. Replaced the valve stem in the tire with a non TPMS one so the XB can still be driven.


Here is the TPMS taken apart. The white RTV came off easy and I used the "lift and peel technique" to remove the tabs from the battery before trying to lever out the circuit board.
Didn't want to risk shorting the board somehow.


Little more cleanup to do, but not much. Just need to clean around where the battery tabs are soldered to the circuit board
The plan from here is to de-solder the old tabs, then solder in the new tabs - Piece of cake right???
Re-pot it and replace it. Then do the same with the other 3

 

That's pretty good work! Good thing they potted it with something easier to remove!

 

After a bit more searching, I found the correct battery at Panasonic ... Bottom of page 2 ... BR-2450A/FJN
Then I found it on Mouser.com so I will order 4 from them. They say they have 34 in stock, I have ordered electrical stuff from them before and it works, though delivery can be slow.
I am going to leave the amazon order in place as a backup.
$16 + $8 shipping + $1.30 tax - They ship UPS ground and they are supposed to arrive next Wednesday (3 days)... better than 3-5 weeks.
Looks like they have stopped using the hand off to USPS, which causes delays.

 

Weird how they arranged these shipping deals. When I lived in SF Bay Area, I ordered some stuff from 50 miles away in Santa Rosa. Package went past me east to Oakland via FedEx. Then up to Sacramento where it was passed on to USPS. Then came back down to me 2 days later. Took 4 days and over 200 mile journey!!!

 

Sometimes, things go whacky.
The wife ordered an item from Florida, to come to AZ and it went to Puerto Rico instead. Bounced around there for a long time. We could track it going from one town to another. After a few weeks it did finally make it out of PR and found us. I've sent Xmas cards to Australia that went to Mexico and were delivered 6 months late.

 

Wow, it actually worked - swapping out the old TPMS batteries for new ones.
I was not sure it would, as I'm not that good with the soldering iron.
But after re-installing everything and doing a reset it went from...
...To

About a minute after turning the ignition on, in trip A mode, while holding the reset button up for 5 seconds
Drove it for a few miles and the light has stayed off.
I have video, just have to compile and edit...

 

Made up the video and put it in a new thread, in case it's worth stickying. Tried to keep it short, but it's 12 minutes long
Did a search on here for TPMS and it looks like having a dealer / tire shop fix it, is quite costly.
Might be worth it for people with the gear.

 

Congratulations on the fix. Quick question. I'm trying to register 4 new sensors with a dts scanner tool. The scanner picks up 4 identification numbers. Is this the 4 old numbers in the ECU or the 4 new numbers in the sensors? The reason I ask is several attempts to register the numbers in the scanner fail. I don't know if I'm referencing the wrong set of numbers.