Patent ID: 9649895
Date: 2017-05-16
CPC Classifications: B60C

Claim:
1. A method for detecting and responding to a potential tire theft, comprising the steps of: (a) receiving an identification number corresponding to a sensor unit associated with a vehicle tire and comparing the received identification number to one or more stored identification numbers corresponding to one or more known sensor units associated with one or more tires of a particular vehicle; (b) detecting that the received identification number does not correspond to a known sensor unit of the vehicle and that a tire is missing from the vehicle when the received identification number does not match at least one of the one or more stored identification numbers to which it was compared; wherein the received identification number corresponds to a sensor unit not associated with the particular vehicle; and (c) providing a notification of the missing tire via a wireless communication sent from a telematics unit on the vehicle, wherein wireless communication is sent automatically by the telematics unit in response to the detection.