A neighbour had them on a Ford Galaxy which had been a Ford company car. He told me that each valve/sensor was about £93 to replace - and the b****y EU now decrees that they are fitted on all new cars.
That's probably the price when they were new technology direct from Ford for a genuine part, I see you can get these sensors for about £30 now. The same with the Saab sensors which were expensive when new but are now available aftermarket and genuine for less than they cost originally. I reckon that TPMS is a good idea as they can alert you to problems early on. I reckon that when I had a tyre blow out that it probably started as a slow puncture as a few miles before the blow-out something rattled from underneath the car and if I'd had TPMS it could have warned me and meant I managed to stop in a parking area instead of having to stop on a bend on a fast dual carriageway with no hard shoulder. I don't know why you use this to have a dig at the EU either, TPMS has been mandatory in the USA for longer and as a technology has been around since the 80's, I can see many other good things over the years that have been legislated for which improve car safety (such as seatbelts, ABS, ESP etc.), TPMS is just another thing on that path.
If you are too stupid to check your tyre pressures regularly then in my opinion you are too stupid to be driving![/font][/size][/color]
That's a bit harsh. For example I've got a very slow leak on one of my front wheels, The only reason I don't get it fixed is that it's on a tyre that is getting very close to replacement time and a tatty rim that probably needs a refurb so I don't want to spend £20 having the tyre refitted and find it still goes down. I check this and all the other tyres weekly and pump them up but sometimes it's lost that bit more pressure than I'd like so if TPMS was there to warn me it would be a bonus. What about if you get a screw stuck in a tyre on a long journey which causes a slow puncture for example? Knowing about it earlier means you might be able to save the tyre too.