Metal Tire Valve Stem Covers
 

Got new tires installed yesterday and they replaced my metal alloy wheel stem covers (they had the colored porsche logo on them) with regular plastic ones.

They explained that metal covers can corrode and get fused onto the metal part of the valve stem, often resulting in a broken stem. If you have TPMS this would potentially require replacement of the sensor and turn into a very costly endeavor.

I had never heard that before, but did a search this morning and sure enough lots of reports of that happening to people.

So I started looking for some non-metal (i.e. plastic or rubber even) valve stem covers with the porsche logo on them.

Found these but not sure of they are metal or plastic:
Factory Tire Valve Stem Caps PNA70500200 - Genuine PORSCHE - Porsche - PNA-705-002-00-OEM | Pelican Parts

Anyone else have this experience before? Anyone found any non-metal porsche valve stem covers?

Thanks

I'm thinking you'd have to leave that cap on there a couple seasons with trapped salt under the cap to have that happen. Or cheap caps.

I've heard metal caps interfere with TPMS transmission or battery so I don't use them on those cars for that reason.

I have some colored crest valve stem caps that are chrome-plated abs plastic. I wouldn't call them metal. I think they are the OEM style (tequipment), but they came with the car when I bought it, so I'm not 100% certain of that.

That said, I'm not the biggest fan of them, as the way they are designed leaves them sticking out quite a bit. I got a bunch of aftermarket valve stem caps in aluminum and brass and haven't decided on which ones, I think I may run one of the aluminum ones. The plastic ones are lightest, followed by aluminum, then brass as being the heaviest.

I needn't concern myself about TPMS issues because my car is not so equipped, but I suppose it's true that bare aluminum caps might corrode on brass valve stems. Brass caps would not have any issue, but they are the heaviest caps out there.

I've had black anodized aluminum caps with Porsche crest on my '99 and live right next to the ocean, haven't had any issues in four years using them.

Porsche actually makes a metal valve stem cover specifically to use with TPMS systems:

[IMG]http://www.****************************************************.com/mm5/graphics/00000002/neuvalve%20stem%20caps%20copy.jpg[/IMG]

So I seriously doubt metal caps bother the TPMS system.