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Comment by throwaway27448 | Hacker News Reader

Not exactly a great example as it's unnecessary and expensive to replace. Lots of other microprocessors actually make your car easier and safer to drive.

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TPMS has been mandatory in the U.S. since 2007. It turns out riding on under-inflated tires is dangerous, and people don’t regularly check their tire pressure.

My car will not exceed a certain speed if TPMS is malfunctioning.

It amazes me that people don't notice. I was driving with a friend once and had to tell them to pull over because they had a puncture.

Conveniently it cost around $200 every 5-7 years to replace all 4.

Driven cars much longer than that without replacing TPMS.

A TPMS doesn't make your car easier and safer to drive???

You can buy a tire gauge at a gas station for $10 and check your tires when you clean your car.

But then again, I am old enough perhaps to have been taught to regularly check your tires before driving to begin with.

Did I just read an argument that it’s easier or safer to manually check your tire pressures rather than having the car do it automatically every time the car drives fast enough to “wake up” the TPMS units?

It's easier to do that than to pay to replace them when the battery dies. Just stop adding more unnecessary costs to my car maintenance!

That battery lasts longer than the tire. People sometimes try to say but I don't drive my car much and that doesn't change the math because tires are destroyed not just from the way of driving but also the sun and ozone in the air destroy tires it still needs to be replaced every seven years., it still needs to be replaced every seven years.

I’m totally comfortable going out to 12 years on tires. Beyond that, I’m replacing them. 7 seems excessively conservative for road use.

The $10 gauge is of dubious accuracy. Especially if I bought it at a convenience store that happens to sell gas.

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