Tire swapping and TPMS reset

Well I had heard that you need to reset the TPMS once you replace the tires so I wanted to get a confirmation and a solution because I live outside of core market and need to swap tires 2x per year (real winter and summer tires). So this is what I got as a reply from Tesla:

Your car will recognize the TPMS-sensors, even if you have put wintertires on the same wheels.
If you would get an extra set of wheels, then the first time you put them on your car, the TPMS-sensors will have to be programmed in a SC, but from then on they will also be recognized forever.
We are working on a software-package to let customers program their own TPMS through the touchscreen, but the exact date of that release isn’t set yet.
The Model S recognizes 8 TPMS-sensors, so you could always use 2 sets of wheels without having to reprogram TPMS.
I hope this is enough information for you, but if you have any more questions, feel free to ask us.

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So this for me is excellent news, it means I can use the same rims with different tires with no need to reset the TPMS and if I decide to get a separate set of rims then I only need to do it once and even better it seems to be coming as a configurable thing to the 17" display

Well you need to rotate the tires, but not the rims. This means that if you just tire swap you should put the rims back to their spots, but put tires on differently This way you get the rotation done and don't need to reset the TPMS. I'll just need to keep in mind and tell that to the guys doing the swapping

jerry33 said:

Not really recommended though. Every time you mount and demount a tire you risk damage. It's best to keep the tires on the same wheels for their entire life unless you need to take them off for repair. Also mounting and balancing isn't all that cheap.

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It's the defacto standard that everyone does here. As an example, it'd cost me ~400 eur for five years of tire swapping on the same rims including balancing and mounting and doing it twice a year. There's no way I could get a second set of rims for that price and I'd still need to do the remounting albeit in theory I could do it at home (in practice I never would). It's also that I've done for all of my cars. For an extra 250 eur they'll keep the other set of tires over the whole 5 years period so total cost ~650 eur or ~130 eur / year. Definitely the cheapest option and insures that the car is well balanced every 6 months (snow may sometimes remove the balancing weights, I've had it happen a couple of times when driving in deep icy snow).

Gizmotoy said:

Wow, that's dirt cheap. $540 USD for 10 mount/rebalances would be completely unheard of here. From Tire Rack, it looks like around here we're more likely to pay between $25 and $40 depending on the tire profile.

So that's a pretty good deal assuming you're OK taking on the risk of wheel/tire damage.

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Those were list prices taken from the website of the guys doing it. I get a discount as I'm a long term customer and all my company cars go there for tire swap and the tires are kept for the season. So far in all the years I've driven I've never had any damage to the tires or rims from the swapping. Those guys are professionals. They're in fact mechanics for a rally team as the owner is a current and ex rally driver Margus Murakas (he drove in the WRC between '97 and '00) so I do trust them to balance the car out far more than I'd trust a random tire place. I'd trust Tesla service, but we don't have that in Estonia so I'm going to use the next best thing

jkirkebo said:

That might work in Estonia but here in Norway you'll pay about €1500 for the same thing. Extra for storage. €3000 for 10 years, I can get very nice rims for way less than that.

Also 21" wheels won't work in winter here.

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Well everything (except a Model S) is expensive in Norway If the price of tire swap was that much higher, then of course the whole business model changes. But forking over 55 eur / season (110 eur / year) is far cheaper to maintain than a new set of rims. Even 10 years would be hard pressed to get a decent set of rims.

With regard to 21" that doesn't fly here at all. The road condition being as it is I'd never go with the 21" rims at all. That's why I had originally ordered an S85 as I assumed the P85 requires 21" rims and only after confirming discovered that in fact it was possible with 19" rims so upgraded. And yes I'd not drive during winter with 21" either so if you bought the P85+, then you have to get 19" rims for the winter and the discussion is somewhat moot

Ok, after some further back and forth by Robert from Sweden using my original e-mail, the result is this:

I am so sorry to inform you, I may have said something that isn’t quite true.
I have had this information that we could program 2 sets of TPMS-sensors on one car, but apparently now it seems to be untrue.
There will probably be a function added in the new firmware, so that customers can program the sensors themselves.
Once again, my apologies, but when the firmware update is released, it will be easier for everyone.

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So one set of TPMS and in the next fw we'll get a way to reset it ourselves.