By Miles Moore, Senior Washington reporter
ORLANDO, Fla. (Aug. 21, 2014) — Tire pressure monitoring systems (TPSM) are a tremendous opportunity for tire dealers — but only if they learn about the different TPMS technologies and inform their customers about the importance of TPMS.
This was the message of five TPMS experts in a roundtable discussion at the International Tire Exhibition and Conference, held Aug. 20-22 in Orlando.
“I educate my customers on a daily basis about TPMS,” said Tyson Boyer of Dill Air Controls. “My ads include TPMS, my website has educational material about TPMS, and I have a resident expert on TPMS.”
Motorists are only just starting to learn about TPMS, and it's better to teach them about that in advance than to spring it on them all at once, according to Mr. Boyer.
“You don't just want to say, ‘Mrs. Johnson, your sensor's broken, that $124,” he said. “It's a little more explainable than that.”
Even more important than educating customers is educating technicians to understand the different TPMS technologies in the market, and which cars have which TPMS systems, the panelists said. Treating systems as interchangeable can be disastrous, they said.
“If you fit a vehicle for one service kit, and you put another one on, you can't fix stupid,” said Scot Holloway of Bartec USA. “You can try to make the system foolproof, but there are new fools born every day.”