I have an 08 Clubman R55. If i purchase winter tires and new wheels do I have to also purchase the TPMS sensors or can I just by-pass or turn off the sensor through the OB computer. As you can tell I am new to this. Thanks for your help. Chris

 

You can't disable the TPMS warning through the left stalk menus.

 

Thanks Spiny, so what do people do for winter. Change tires twice a year?

 

I have two sets of wheels and tires. It's a half hour in November and April to swap them over. I got the TPMS sensors for all sets, mainly because I'm still running runflats (yes, i know that's heresy but I like them), and just get the car to re-learn the sensors using the "Reset" function on the stalk, after I get out of range of the wheels I just removed.

Trying to have tires swapped on and off the same rims at each end of the year will be expensive, and you'll end up with marked up rims and damaged tires pretty quickly I think. One or two tire swaps will pay for the $60 each for new steels or $100 for cheap alloys, or even less if you pick up a set of used wheels on the marketplace here.

 

TPMS is not needed if you aren't driving on runflats. You get a warning light indicating TPMS isn't working. I ignore it.

 

even on craiglist of your area you can find some wheels to mount some tires on, or people sell their old one that can have nearly full life left on them, just use the tire calculator function of this website to make sure that you know the differences of diameter (if any). I swap my GF's mini over to snows, and she has a r56, takes no time at all. I do her mini and mine at the same time. takes me longer to get the wheels out of the attic and put back than it is for me to swap them over. and she ignores the message.

 

In some states you can apparently fail your state inspection if you have the TPMS light on (see this page at Tire Rack). For once, my home state of Massachusetts isn't one of the states that require it!