Diesel Tom
Active Member
- Joined
- May 8, 2015
- Messages
- 61
- Reaction score
- 2
- City, State
- Stone Mountain, GA
- Year, Model & Trim Level
- 2007 Ford Explorer
My son drives a 2007 Explorer about 50 miles one way to work everyday on the interstate. About mid way through every trip he would get a TPMS warning that there was a malfunction in the TPMS system - not a low tire pressure warning. This has gone on for the last two years. While my son is driving around town, the malfunction indication does not come on.
I had tried two different sets of different brands of TPMS sensors. First Motorcraft from Amazon and then Standard. Same results with both. I finally figured that the Smart Junction Box which contains the receiver for the TPMS system just wasn't sensitive enough to receive the signals from one or both of the sensors in the rear tires. I had also noticed that sometimes the right rear tire would not train and I had to remove the tire and roll it to the front of the car in order to get it to train properly.
I decided to give the SJB receiver a little help signal wise. I fashioned an antenna of single conductor wire around each inner wheel well and secured it with (what else?) duct tape. I then spliced these two antennas to a third wire and ran it inside the car to the driver's footwell. Then I made an 6" coil of about 5 turns of wire. I then folded this coil around the SJB and secured it with duct tape.
The TPMS system has not malfunctioned a single time since I installed the rear tire well antennas.
(The Motorcraft TPMS sensors from Amazon were packaged in what appeared to be official Motorcraft packaging and were sold as new . However, they had an unusual note of the package: "Packaged in 2017." The date codes on the actual sensors would indicate that the sensors were much older than that.)
I had tried two different sets of different brands of TPMS sensors. First Motorcraft from Amazon and then Standard. Same results with both. I finally figured that the Smart Junction Box which contains the receiver for the TPMS system just wasn't sensitive enough to receive the signals from one or both of the sensors in the rear tires. I had also noticed that sometimes the right rear tire would not train and I had to remove the tire and roll it to the front of the car in order to get it to train properly.
I decided to give the SJB receiver a little help signal wise. I fashioned an antenna of single conductor wire around each inner wheel well and secured it with (what else?) duct tape. I then spliced these two antennas to a third wire and ran it inside the car to the driver's footwell. Then I made an 6" coil of about 5 turns of wire. I then folded this coil around the SJB and secured it with duct tape.
The TPMS system has not malfunctioned a single time since I installed the rear tire well antennas.
(The Motorcraft TPMS sensors from Amazon were packaged in what appeared to be official Motorcraft packaging and were sold as new . However, they had an unusual note of the package: "Packaged in 2017." The date codes on the actual sensors would indicate that the sensors were much older than that.)
