thanks for the ideas. the tires have been rotated many times so that sort of muddies the water. Or do the sensors in the tires get "read" by a sensor permanently located near each tire position, so sensor 1 is always located left/front?? In that case the easiest/cheapest first step would be to just switch the two front tires and see if the "low" tire is now at position 2????
I think the black tape idea is it for now until I need new tires. spare is not full size, but that was a good idea.
thanks,
bumpy