Recently picked up an Autel TS601 TPMS scanner... not being a tire shop I really never wanted to buy one of these things, however it never fails I'll get a massive job in and the customer will ask "Can to turn off my tire pressure light?" and what are you gonna do when they are spending over a grand on repairs? The scanner was pretty expensive! $295! But it has really come in handy and I am surprised by how many times I have used it since buying (over a dozen times so far). 

I was considering buying the Snap-On unit, but at over $1000+ there just wasn't any justification to burn that kind of money on something I don't really get much into... I could have even purchased cheaper units in the $100-$200 range... in fact, I did purchase a few TPMS triggers and they only cost anywhere from $10-20!

This is an off-brand TPMS "Trigger" unit shown below, 

With this system you can use the manufactures on-board procedure and "trigger" each wheel (The order seems to always be Left Front, Right Front, Right Rear, Left Rear -- even for other tools). The vehicle will confirm that it has been triggered by blinking a light or honking the horn - sometimes both... then you move on to the next wheel. It's somewhat primative, but it could get the job done if you're working with good sensors where there was no TMPS light on until after you rotated the tires... but as far as programing or anything outside of a bare "trigger" it's pretty low tech and won't be enough. It works off s 9V battery, and does not plug into the vehicles OBD-II port. It just sends a signal to trigger the TPMS on a per wheel basis. This tool is advertised to trigger GM and Ford vehicles.

After having to replace a tire pressure sensor I found the above tool okay, but not enough for my needs... even though I do keep one on hand.

Then I purchased this Autel TS601 handheld shown below,

It's a pretty slick unit - and according to them I can update it to the 2024 edition for free this year. I'll be checking into that to make sure they are good about it because I am also considering a scanner from them as well, but that's a seperate thread.

This unit is pretty beefy, and while it won't program some generic sensors they try selling at the parts stores, it will clone and program sensors that are specifically sold for your vehicle, both factory and aftermarket. 

The nice part about it is that it covers almost ALL car manufactures, and it plugs into the OBD-II port so you can program new to the car sensor values to the TPMS computer. 

What I like most about it is the digital read out -- where I can just plug in the Year, Make and Model of a vehicle then go around and trigger each sensor (in the same order as mentioned above) and it will give me a read out of all of the sensors values such as

* Exact tire pressure reading

* Battery level of the pressure sensor itself

* And also indicate if the sensor is dead or just not transmitting. 

This cuts down on a lot of time... for example the customer above needs all new sensors.

It's nice also for checking tire pressures on systems that don't display on the dash... it also records all the sensor data and can store all four tires (five if you have one in the spare tire) and program them all into the vehicles TPMS computer! This is nice when you change out an entire set! Plus you can check them before you even install them, which saves times because sometimes you can get a bad sensor out of a batch. Nothing worse than mounting a tire and having to wait to see if the new TPMS sensor is any good - or at least the proper frequency.

Now I find myself checking everyones tire pressure lights, and at least being able to tell them what they need. I figure the unit will probably pay itself off by the end of 2024 as $300 was a lot of money... but for sure a lot less than $!,000+