Tire Pressure malfunction and dead key fob. Related?

[tsingtao]

Any other make of vehicle I would feel silly asking this. But I have a VW, known for all sorts of electronic gremlins.

Yesterday my low tire light went on. Stopped the car and did a visual check and saw no problem. When I got home, checked the pressures ~43 to 45psi in all tires (this is Phoenix in the summer and the tires were hot).

Looked it up in the manual and found that the one minute flashing low tire indicator when the vehicle is started and then a solid low tire symbol indicates a malfunction. (I have a 2009 with the in-tire sensors.) Figured I would deal with it later and went to lock the car. The key fob had a dead battery. I fished out my other key fob and locked the car.

Today, started the car and got the flashing indicator again but, after one minute it went out. No problems since.

Could the tire light problem and the dead key fob battery be related? Or is it just a very strange coincidence?

 

[Charrigan]

A flashing tpms light is 90% of the time a dead or dying tpms sensor. The average battery life on a sensor is 6 years or 100k miles. I see failures well before that and after. It could also be a fault with the tpms antenna but that's very very rare.

My bet is one of your sensors is on its last leg.

 

[tsingtao]

A flashing tpms light is 90% of the time a dead or dying tpms sensor. The average battery life on a sensor is 6 years or 100k miles. I see failures well before that and after. It could also be a fault with the tpms antenna but that's very very rare.

My bet is one of your sensors is on its last leg.

Car is only 3.5yr old but, with the high temperatures here the batteries may not last too long.

Was planning on getting new tires (originals are still on the car) soon. Would you recommend buying a set of 4 sensors and having the old ones changed out at that time?

 

[Charrigan]

Discount Tire stores carry a tpms scan tool that can check for a faulty sensor and check tpms DTC's. I personally would advise against replacing all 4. Just replace them as they fail.

There are quite a few discount tires in your area. They will check them at no charge for you.

 

[tsingtao]

Discount Tire stores carry a tpms scan tool that can check for a faulty sensor and check tpms DTC's. I personally would advise against replacing all 4. Just replace them as they fail.

There are quite a few discount tires in your area. They will check them at no charge for you.

Thanks! Discount was where I was planning to buy new tires at anyway. I have always had good experiences with them when buying tires for other vehicles.