I was driving on the garden state parkway North traveling approximately 65mph (the speed limit) and I was in the left lane of the three lane local lanes. I drifted too far to the left and hit the rumble strips on the side of the road. Immediately, my TPMS light came on and I pulled over right away. Apparently, my TPMS sensor on the tire broke and was letting air out of my tire. What happened was, the metal screw that is around the metal valve stem sheered off and nothing was holding the valve stem/TPMS in place except for the air pressure inside the tire. When I ran over the rumble strip, it must have dislodged the sensor and started letting air out of my tire. I went to a tire shop and they found a broken TPMS sensor and they replaced the valve stem with a standard non-TPMS valve stem. My tire was undamaged and is back on the rim, so it was 100% a problem with the TPMS sensor. Furthermore, last year, I had a similar problem. I got a flat tire and my TPMS was damaged. Now, looking back, I feel that the TPMS must have failed causing my flat tire. In that incident, my tire was destroyed because of the flat. I notice now that Chrysler has a newer version of their TPMS sensors that go on the wheel. The new version has a rubber valve stem, while the ones on my vehicle have a metal valve stem. Obviously, Chrysler has found an issue with the metal ones and have updates their parts. I think that this is a serious issue and even though I am ok, I can forsee this causing major problems. Chrysler should have my remaining TPMS sensors replace at no cost to me.

- Parsippany, NJ, USA

As I was driving my 2009 Jeep Grand Cherokee on a highway at approx 70 mph my left rear tire instantly went flat immediately following a low tire pressure indicator. When I stopped my car to check the flat I noticed that the tire valve (tire pressure monitor wheel sensor) was gone. When I changed the tire I realized the pressure sensor fell into the wheel because the threaded nut that holds the sensor in place failed and broke in two causing the tire to loose all its air at once. I checked the retaining nuts on the remaining wheels to discover they were all cracked badly and could fail at any time. I later learned from the dealer that Chrysler has updated the part number to a new rubber valve sensor, and the sensor I have is no longer available. Chrysler knows about the problem but to my surprise has not issued a technical service bulletin or a recall. What if it had been a front tire that went flat causing an accident resulting in injury or death to myself or someone else? I've called Chrysler cust assistance and am working it out with them currently. But from what I've gathered so far they don't see this as a safety issue. To me this is a huge liability issue, and an even bigger safety concern.

- Carmel , NY, USA

I was writing to you to complain about TPMS sensors that are required on vehicles these days. As a fast lube operator, we are experiencing more and more TPMS sensors breaking apart when just trying to get the cap off to air up a customers tire. We have also had instances where the sensor broke as soon as we put the air chuck on the valve stem to air up the tire. As you can imagine, when this happens, the customer expects us to pay for the replacement of the sensor because it wasn't broken when they got there. Something needs to change. It might force us to quit checking peoples tire pressure which is why they were invented to begin with (the whole Firestone-Ford Explorer saga). These sensor need to be made out of a different material or removed from vehicles all together.

- Jackson, MO, USA