well, after the Ford explorer/Firestone tire failures, and probably going the extra mile, so to speak, for optimizing fuel economy, the feds mandated the tire pressure monitoring. So if you have the tpms already, and you have the computers anyway, I imagine it's just a little programming to make it do that, so I don't know how much of a gimmick it is. I was certainly unaware of it, and it had no influence on my wife and I buying the car.