TPMS (not) for Canada - alternative...
Does anyone know if the US and Canadian Ascent is different? I emailed my sales rep yesterday with a few questions, including if the Limited has TPMS (trying to price out winter wheels and tires) and his reply was:
"Hey Scott. Subaru has never had the tire pressure monitor system."
So now I'm really confused. I'm fine without them, prefer that actually, given the cost to add them to additional wheels.
Hi Scott, Subaru Ascents made for the Canadian market do not have TPMS.
If you want decent TPMS, you can use this kit (though, I'd prefer it with metal valve stems installed on the rims, but I used it with the rubber ones on my former 2010 Outback) - I found them highly accurate:
Since you don't have TPMS, you can swap the rubber valve stems with steel ones.
The key to using them is proper and careful installation so that:
- You don't tear the valve stem.
- You don't leak air out from not tightening the caps properly.
- You tighten them down enough that they can register tire pressure.
I'd posted this info in another of our TPMS threads (still trying to figure out if we can cleanly merge them all)...
TPMS are mandated in the United States, thanks to Ford, and sadly to the people who got hurt or died. The TREAD Act was enacted by Congress in 2000, effective for 2008 and newer model years, after rollover incidents involving the Ford Explorer and Firestone tires.
There's a lot more to the TREAD Act (the name isn't really about tires) for those who are bored and like reading up on such things.
Here's the text of it for those really bored:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/106/hr5164/text
Wikipedia detailed summary:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans...ncement,_Accountability_and_Documentation_Act
Here's a good short summary:
https://www.nhtsa.gov/sites/nhtsa.dot.gov/files/weinstein.pdf
Bonus doc:
https://one.nhtsa.gov/nhtsa/announce/testimony/tread.html
SHORT VERSION:
TPMS is mandated in the United States, but not Canada. Vehicles made for sale in Canada may or may not have TPMS depending on whether or not the manufacturer decided to do a slightly different spec vehicle for Canada.
My understanding is that theoretically, if you get an Ascent that was slated for the US market, but delivered to Canada, it would have the TPMS, unless they took the time to swap wheels. If you got an Ascent that was slated for the Canadian market but got it in the US, then they definitely swapped to wheels with TPMS as required by law when the vehicle is re-assigned as a US vehicle.