TPMS - a pain in the neck

[Guest]

For a few months I've had a slow loss of pressure in one of my Foresters tyres.

Today I got fed up with it and took the wheel to the tyre shop. They diagnosed a leaking valve, fine, an easy fix except...

Because of the TPMS, the valve unit appears to be specific to Subaru, so I had to rush off to my nearest Subaru garage to buy a £7 valve, then back to the tyre shop to have it fitted.

I was warned that should the sensor itself need replacing it would cost me more like £70.

I'd be tempted to just remove or disable the sensors but I understand that is illegal.

Whose crazy idea was it to make the valves specific to the make/model of vehicle ?! I'd normally blame the car makers so they can sell lots of replacement valves, but at £7 a time they're hardly going to make a fortune.

Come to that, I've never had a valve fail before - are the TPMS valves flimsy or something ?!