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The TPMS module goes through a whole algorithm as a process of elimination to determine which sensor is at which position and to determine which sensors it reads should be registered or not. Remember, it could also be reading sensors of the vehicles parked next to your car as well as your own. So you have to take the vehicle for a drive, and it has to read the same sensors and no others for a certain distance before it will register them.

i.e. from what I read, its possible that if you drove a hundred miles side by side with same vehicle that also had TPMS sensors, your TPMS module still wouldn't register the sensors because of the way it works. But what are the chances of driving side by side with the same vehicle for that long. But, if you live in a high density area with lots of traffic, I could see it taking many times longer than most experiences before the sensors register or TPMS recognizes a tire rotation.

Oh BTW, do you have the premium TPMS, that will display the pressure in each tire? The base system only has a warning light, and only displays a warning light when either 1 or more tires is below pressure or there is a TPMS malfunction. I think the only difference in the systems is the display, cause I have the base system and although the instrument cluster can only light a TPMS warning light, I can hook up my autoenguinity (ultra-capable scan tool) and read the pressure at each tire, and temperature, and more. Regardless, with the Premium TPMS system, that displays pressure for each tire, you can trouble shoot the sensors to confirm you have the right one. You start with the tire you suspect is bad, bleed out air to drop the pressure a good 20PSI, check the display and make sure it reads the pressure drop. Refill the tire and check again and make sure it shows the pressure gain. Make sure each tire is close to the pressure that is on the display.

In my case, the bad TPMS sensor always read the same pressure, regardless of what the actually pressure was in the tire. The erroneous pressure reading was within normal tire pressure, so you wonder how the TPMS system knew something was wrong, there must be a self-test or at least the system is sophisticated enough to recognize the lack of pressure changes in the tire must mean a malfunction, cause tire pressure goes up and down with every drive.
 
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