gnu -

The dealer of course quoted the maximum charges he might be able to run up. If resetting the TPMS in the computer fixed it he'd probably have claimed he had to use the computer and might have charged around $60, although most likely he'd actually have done it the same way I did. IFF he found a bad sensor, the tire would have to come off the rim to get to it since you have to put a new valve stem in (the sensor's usually attached to the stem). The retail price on a sensor can run any where form $20 to $50, but Chevy uses at least two or three different ones so I don't know which one my truck uses. The only way to really tell is to look at one of them, and they do claim it's best not to mix kinds. (Theoretically the dealer can tell which type is in a tire by reading it off from the big diagnostic computer they're supposed to have, but most people who've tried it say it doesn't work very well.) Labor to dismount and remount a tire would run about $30 or a little more, plus the cost of the sensor, and of course if you're the least bit fussy the wheel needs rebalancing anytime you remount a tire.

I had a pretty good 30 gallon compressor but it crapped out on me and I couldn't get parts in time to get an urgent job done, so I had to buy another one. Later when I had time I rebuilt the original one, so now I have two. I had sort of planned to palm the rebuilt one off on my kid, but he decided he'd rather just borrow mine.

Since I park fairly far out, I generally keep 100' of hose hanging on the compressor, but I've got another 50' handy and a 35' piece of "not really very good" stuff. When the kid borrows mine, it means running my hose the long length of my lot and across the street, and sometimes the hunk he carries on his Freightliner to get up his driveway to where he wants to do something, but we can do it okay.

He's got some good air tools that run just fine even on a couple of hundred feet of hose, but the cheap shit tools I've got use more air than both compressors (ganged together) can really keep up with even on a short hose. Since I'm too old to hunker down over a job very long, running the compressor tanks down is a good excuse to take a break often enough that it sort of works out okay.

I generally carry a battery powered compressor in the truck for "road use" and since I found one that actually works pretty good sometimes it's handier just to use it for regular tire checks. It's easier to carry it to the next tire than dragging a hose, especially in cold weather when the hose is stiff.

It wasn't really easy getting to one that actually holds a charge and is reliable when you want it, and I went through quite a few before I got to one worth carrying around on a regular basis, but the one I've been using has always been ready to go for about 3 years now.

Quite incidentally, a rear end alignment sometimes is worth it. It's unusual to need to correct anything to make both rear wheels point in the same direction, but if they both point off a little sideways the front wheels will have to be "cocked" to go straight down the road and the camber will be wrong if they're set up to go straight ahead. It's a little "unintuitive" that a misaligned rear end wears out the front tires, but that really is how it usually works if there is a kink in your ass end.

John