Curious case of sudden tyre pressure loss on my 2022 Audi A4

There's a safety or anti-theft lug nut provided by Audi which is custom built for every car.

BHPian JoshMachine recently shared this with other enthusiasts.

The last week-10 days or so have been every eventful.

Experienced this for the first time on my A4:-

I was doing maybe about 80ish on the highway when this popped up, and it was bit scary when the MID suddenly started dinging with this warning. Pulled over to the side, and clicked this pic. The warning said loss of pressure in the front right tyre, so immediately inspected it.

Went to the nearest petrol pump and found out that the the pressure had fallen down to almost 25 psi (I usually fill 36 front - 33 rear as per recommended regular load setting on the A4) and filled up back to almost near recommended levels (left 1-2 psi as margin to compensate for the hot tyre temperature). Reset & stored the threshold psi levels in the MMI, drove around with absolutely no trouble for the rest of the day. In hindsight, it looked like an one-off incident.

Next day morning, when the tyre was relatively cold, checked the pressure again. Showed 36 psi, which was the exact psi for regular load setting in the A4. That looked good.

Started off again on the same highway patch, and within about 10-15 mins, the warning dinged again! Now, this got me thinking about the matter being slightly more serious than just random loss of pressure and so I obviously had to get it checked from a proper tyre shop.

Went to Darshan Tyres, Kothrud for the same. They did a thorough inspection (putting it in a large water tub + soapy solution + some gel-type liquid spray to check for air leakages on the entire sidewall as well and the valve. However, nothing gave. Filled it back to the recommended tyre pressure setting and voila! Its been like that for the past 3 days and nothing has dinged, touchwood.

Few things that I discovered or rather (re)learnt in this whole episode.

There's a safety or anti-theft lug nut provided by Audi.

One has to fold the rear seat first via the small lever in the slot:-

..then open the tool kit, nestled under:-

..and then finally remove the anti-theft lug nut (which is custom-built for every car, I was told):-

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