kwj

This past winter, I had all four tires replaced and during the swap at Costco Tires, they found one of the sensors rolling around the tire as it had broken off the stem (must’ve been when I hit a pothole?). They offered to replace it with one of their aftermarket ones. The car didn’t read the pressures even after they “re-learned” the sensor. Long story short, I purchased a Lexus TPMS at the dealer and brought it to Costco to have them replace it with the genuine one. Even still, the sensor isn’t reading and when the ignition turns on, the pressure light blinks multiple times and stays constantly on. I called the dealer about it and they wanted to charge me an arm and a leg to program it. Called a few local tire shops but the cheapest one wanted almost $400 to diagnose and program it... Any suggestions on what to do? I’ve tried the reset button as well but no dice.. I don’t mind learning how to program and buying a programming tool to do it myself as long as I don’t have to shell out bills after bills.

Sasnuke

The new sensor won't work until it's code is programmed into the vehicle.
The code is actually written on the body of the sensor...so if by chance you took a pic of it, the code is there.
You can program the code with a Techstream...if you have access to one.
Alternately there are tools at the dealer that will read the code even if the sensor is already installed.

At this point the cheapest route should be to take it to the dealer, tell them 1 sensor was replaced.
They will need to read the code of all 4 sensors and compare it to what is programmed to the vehicle already.
3 of the 4 sensors should appear in the vehicle datalist, there the 4th one is the broken sensor, and the code from the wheels that doesn't match is the new one.
They can them erase the old one and program the new one.

It's unfortunate that when you bought the sensor at the dealer, you didn't have them install it. Should have been an easy process at that point.

kwj

Drove by a tire shop and just for ******s and giggles, stopped and asked how much it would be to reprogram it like you said. These guys did it in 10min and charged me $50. A good day, to say the least. Take that, stealership!

Sasnuke

Awesome you got it resolved. $50 is a fair price for the work.