Porsche TPMS sensor deactivation

This is a problem we are seeing more and more these days with the DOT mandated TPMS sensors on all cars produced after 2008 IIRC. The government has decided that since some people can’t or won’t check the air in their tires anymore, that they should require sensors to be installed in all cars from the factory so it can tell you when a tire is low. The issue is that these are battery powered sensors in each tire, with a lifespan of 5-6 years. After that, you get to replace them at about $150 each plus labor. Remember when you use to buy new tires and the tire shop would tell you that they also needed 4 new valve stems at $4 each…..yea things have changed. Now you have 4 $150 valve stems and a programming fee! There is no way for the driver to just turn the sensing system off, thus they have to live with a giant yellow tire light warning on their dash at all times. Also, with aftermarket rims, many people just install standard valve stems in their rims, thus the car can not sense the pressures and throw the warning. Well we have a solution 🙂

Under the bonnet, we have to remove the trim to get to the TPMS control unit.

Once we can get to that, we unplug the system. This will still throw an error light though.

In the case of this turbo, it has aftermarket rims with no sensors, so time to get rid of the light.

Under instrument cluster coding, we tell the car that the car is not equipped with TPMS

And tell the display to not be active.

Then under gateway coding, we tell the system the TPM is not installed.

Then reset the instrument cluster. No more TPMS light!