TPMS or Tyre Pressure Management Systems are they worth the money to buy one or not? I’d read about these systems that measure the tyre pressure and temperature of your tyres and wondered whether they were really worth it. Lots of truck companies insist on them being on all their trucks now as a TPMS can alert you to a potential failing tyre and you can do something about it before the tyre blows out and causes a real problem.

After a bit of research reading forums and such we purchased the Safety Dave TPMS online directly from Safety Dave. Our motorhome is based on an Iveco chassis and we have two front wheels and four rear wheels, two on either side of the rear axle so we needed 6 sensors.

The TPMS arrive quickly by Australia Post and we installed it a couple of days before we were due to leave on our Big Red Bash trip. The monitor goes on the dash and the sensors are attached to the valve of each tyre in place of the valve cap. They wirelessly send data to the monitor for each tyre. Very quickly we found one of our tyres was losing air so we took the MH to our local tyre dealer. The tyre was taken off however nothing could be found wrong with it so the valve was replaced in case it was a faulty valve. We were good to go.

We set off on our way and found the tyre was still losing air slowly so once we arrived in Hillston it was straight to the tyre shop. Again they couldn’t find anything wrong and said we were good to go. We set off towards Mt Hope but the tyre was still losing air. Something was still wrong. Back to Hillston where we had to stay overnight so we could visit the tyre shop the next morning.

Next morning the tyre came off again and again nothing could be found wrong with it. The valve was fine. The only thing it could be was possibly the valve extension and they didn’t have any. We would have to try in Cobar.

We arrived in Cobar and went straight to the tyre shop where we were able to get a new valve extension and yay…..this finally solved the problem of the leaking air. Without the TPMS we would not have known the tyre was slowly leaking. It would have just kept going down until one of us noticed that it was getting flat. We could also have had a blow out in that tyre that could have caused all sorts of problems.

Already I think the TPMS has paid for itself and we can confidently continue on our journey to the Outback.