A couple of months back, a warning appeared on the dashboard in my car.

“Unable to read Tyre Pressure Monitor Sensors”, it said.  Oh great, something else to pay out for!

But then it disappeared. Then it came back. And then it disappeared again.  Eventually, it came back and it stayed there.  I thought I’d better look into it.

It turns out that what I thought was probably something only featuring on higher end cars, has actually been fitted to all new cars in the UK since 2012.  In fact, not just in the UK: Tyre Pressure Monitoring Systems (TPMS) have been mandatory in all new cars sold in Europe since 2014 and in the United States since 2008.

Well, I never knew that.

Further research showed that the most likely reason I was getting the warning was that the battery had probably failed on one or more units. There is one fitted into the valve on each wheel and the battery should last between 8 to 10 years, apparently.

My car is 9 years old.

A couple of weeks back, I phoned my local tyre fitter and he quoted me 110 quid to replace the sensor in each wheel. That’s 440 quid!  I decided that I could live without TPMS… you know, just like we did in the old days. We managed to get by without such technology for decades, didn’t we?

But, apparently, it’s now an MOT fail.

In the end, I decided just to replace the one that had died so as to get rid of the warning on the dash.  I shall likely have to go again in a few months when another one dies. Maybe it’s time for me to look at buying a new car. Hmmm…

So, be warned, if your car is coming up to nine or ten years old, you may well have some unexpected expense coming your way.