The guesses were almost unanimous in the last STI post. Loose, or completely separated, TPMS sensor.
Not to spoil the results which are posted after the jump, but you did well. Next time we do a guessing game, just to make it harder, you're getting a lot less real information and a lot more vague onomatopoeias and illogical trigger events. (Like the guy I saw at the Ford dealer last week, said his car was "doing a BZZZZ thing when the wheel goes like this" -- at this point he made a gesture with his hand that looked like a salmon jumping up a waterfall. I really want to know what was going on with that Stang).
Follow the jump for pictures, a slightly more detailed explanation and a surprise failure with the STI!
It took our tire place, Stokes, about 15-seconds to diagnose the problem. It's uncommon, but not unheard of. They didn't have a new sensor in stock so we had them put the wheel back on. We planned to buy one from Subaru on Monday (yesterday) and then have Stokes install it. We trust them. Subaru of Santa Monica, not so much. Stokes pulled the cracked and battered sensor out of the tire and I headed out with the STI for the weekend.
Risking life and limb without a d-side TPMS sensor, I headed East on Saturday with the goal of meeting friends somewhere outside of Palm Springs. The trip was about 100-miles and the STI's fuel gauge read 90-miles left on the tank. If you've ever met me before you'll know that I intended to go for it. It's a challenge that's easily met but fun none-the-less.
But then, about 40 miles into the trip I got nervous. LA's freeways aren't the smoothest surfaces with the equivalent of frost heaves every 15-feet the Subaru, loaded with three people, was bobbing and bouncing like a full-size truck. This gave the illusion that the hood on the car was loose and flopping slightly. Not wanting another hood smashing into my windshield --yes, it's happened to me on the highway. Not fun. Makes things very dark.-- I pulled over to check it out. Sure 'nuff it was secure. Also secure was the fuel door regardless of what I did with the release lever and the fuel door. Remember, this has happened before to Jay, he propped it up with his wallet and pried the door open with his fingers. Some commenters have said theirs did the same thing.
Well not this time. I texted SubyTrojan for help, "Yo. STI fuel door stuck. Got a quick fix?" "No. Sorry." was his almost instant reply. "Thanks Good thing I have reliable EVO MR to trade into." (Yes, we both text in near-complete sentences.)
So the STI parked this weekend while I ran around in a faster, sharper more fun EVO MR.
Yesterday the STI went back to Subaru of Santa Monica. The fuel door needed fixing and they may as well do the TMPS sensor while they had the car.
It was with an unnecessary level of roughness that my service advisor pried open the fuel door. I wouldn't have done that with my car, but no damage was done. Turns out there is a small V-shaped clip at the hinge-side of the door. It acts as a spring to open the door. It also gets caught on the rubber boot from the gas pump nozzle. Usually it's an easy trick to pop it open once this happens, but this time the clip was acting as a wedge, requiring an additional, confident burst of energy. They also had the tire pressure sensor in stock. It was $72.40. Less, actually, than we were expecting. Labor to install and calibrate the thing was much more though, at $50.00. 5-hours after delivery our car was ready. We paid them $128.37 total for the job.
Mike Magrath, Vehicle Testing Assistant @ 20,131 miles
corollasman says:
11:25 AM, 03/17/09
"Risking life and limb without a d-side TPMS sensor..."
Does lack of a sensor really have that much of an adverse affect, or were you being sarcastic?
The blog entries on this car make it uninteresting to me. I actually thought about buying the STI, but it doesn't seem to be worth the money.
redliner says:
12:02 PM, 03/17/09
@corollasman
I'm 1000% positive that she was being sarcastic. People have driven around without TPMS (and stability control) for over 100 years. It's only in the last 5 years that this technology has become wide-spread.
carguy622 says:
12:02 PM, 03/17/09
The hood flew open on one of your cars, a previous STI blog entry author said that he blew up his engine, what do you people do to you cars!
lenoroc says:
12:11 PM, 03/17/09
At least it hasn't scooped any bird yet.
lazyhater says:
01:17 PM, 03/17/09
How come the broken TPMS not cover under the warranty?
actualsize says:
02:57 PM, 03/17/09
Feb. 23: "Death of a Tire"
Feb. 27: Back on the road with a new tire.
Whoever installed the new tire broke the sensor with the bead-breaking tool. A ham-fisted tire buster could easily do this. Whether it was Stokes or the Subaru dealer, we should have pressured them to eat the cost of the new sensor and installation.
An outside chance says it broke when as Erin was pulling over, with little air left. But that would only happen if the tire had de-beading and was flopping around on the rim.
Even so, I'm not buying that theory: the tire guy would have seen it during the dismount and said something if it came to him like that. No, I'm still betting he broke, knew he broke it, and kept his mouth shut during the dismount, or he broke it and didn't know he broke it during the remount.
There's a reason why the dealer keeps these in stock. The batteries are designed to last ten years, so mount/dismount damage is the only reason to replace one of these things on a one-year old car.
And $72.50? Highway robbery. I worked on the engineering side of TPMS and sensors cost less than $5 to make in the very large quantitites they make them. Sure a couple of distribution layers need to make money, but this seems excessive.
carguy622 says:
03:13 PM, 03/17/09
actualsize: If you only know how much it cost Banana Republic to make an $80 pair of pants.
subytrojan says:
06:16 PM, 03/17/09
That's what I thought, Dan! I told Magrath that the sensor was probably damaged/broken due to an improper installation, too.
zoomzoomn says:
04:57 AM, 03/18/09
I agree with alot of the statements above. I work at an automotive dealer and have to deal with your typical drivers complaining about that TPM/FTM warning being on AGAIN! Most of the time is is solely because THEY NEVER CHECK THEIR OWN PRESSURES! EVER!!!
Ok. Ranting aside, I guess that's partly why this technology exists. For the general masses that don't actually do anything to their cars but put gas in them and bring them in for an occasional service. Like noted above, we did survive a century of driving before this technology appeared, but what the hay!
I also agree that the cost passed on to the consumer for these sensors is apalling! My sister has had to replace two of them of late because they quit working (one suspiciously right after the tires were replaced...yeah, right). They were just over $100 installed. I have found that the sensors aren't always optimally positioned to avoid damage during tire changes (even when a tech is being careful in full knowledge that they exist).
One thing that we have started doing to alleviate the frequency of TPM/FTM warnings is switching tires over to nitrogen. Nitrogen alledgedly will not bleed through the tire as regular old compressed air will. The hope is that with this svc, the false service related warnings will be less frequent.
blankfocus says:
05:09 AM, 03/18/09
i'd still buy it. i can't get myself to like the evo. (of course, i haven't driven one yet)
drphyzx says:
05:01 PM, 04/15/09
Here is your fuel door problem: Make sure the tether for the cap does not end up on the hinge side of the plastic-coated tab on the fuel door (look and you will see what I mean) when you close it. If the tether gets stuck over there, it keeps the door from releasing.
I had this problem too occasionally until I figured out what was going on.