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[chuckee98]

Noticed a nail in my passenger side rear tire the other day. Tire was holding pressure, no warnings other than me seeing the nailhead in the tread. Tried pulling it out, then heard the sound of leaking air. Jacked up the car, took the wheel off, and brought it over to the local Goodyear. They patched it from inside with no hesitation and remounted it with no rebalancing necessary since we marked the valve location on the tire (checked the balance anyway - dead nuts). No rim rash from the dismount and remount, too!

[chuckee98]

Originally Posted by MusclezMarinara

not supposed to "patch" a run flat

Not true - there's much debate about that on the forum. The concern is if the tire was "run" when it was "flat", thereby wearing and damaging the reinforced sidewall. This was not my case - it never went flat. I asked before I had them patch it. Dealers will not patch because of the liability concern.

[RoundelM3]

Dealers will not patch because of the liability concern.

So this is the big downside of run-flats...basically, they're only able to be used once when they lose pressure, requiring a replacement. The problem that a lot of folks don't think about is what if the tires are at half tread depth or better? It's going to throw things way out of balance if you have one new tire and 1 or 3 others that are worn down - grip will be different, etc. That's somewhat of a safety concern, which woul require you to at the very least buy one additional tire to put on the opposite side of the car. This gets expensive quickly, considering the high cost of run-flats.

[zeenon53]

Always change tires 2 at a time. You should be just fine in this situation.

[Couch]

Originally Posted by roundel335

So this is the big downside of run-flats...basically, they're only able to be used once when they lose pressure, requiring a replacement. The problem that a lot of folks don't think about is what if the tires are at half tread depth or better? It's going to throw things way out of balance if you have one new tire and 1 or 3 others that are worn down - grip will be different, etc. That's somewhat of a safety concern, which woul require you to at the very least buy one additional tire to put on the opposite side of the car. This gets expensive quickly, considering the high cost of run-flats.

I know this. I've purchased 3 rft's since last november on the same rim.

As much as they can be a Godsend at times, they are mostly highly overrated.

[RoundelM3]

I think they have a purpose...one of my co-workers who is female needed new tires on her Lexus 430SC, which came with runflats as OEM. She was going to go with the non-runflats but her dad talked her into getting them again because of the safety factor. He didn't think she needed to be trying to change or even use the goo-inflator on the side of the road somewhere out in the middle of nowhere on a busy highway. Of course, a cell phone call could get a wrecker/tire service to assist her, but then you never know when you might not have coverage or low cell battery, etc. I went with non-runflats when the OEMs when smooth and got the M-Mobility kit they sell for the M3. Thus far, no regrets...the lighter tires and lighter aftermarket wheels make a big diff in ride and handling.

[Couch]

Originally Posted by roundel335

I think they have a purpose...one of my co-workers who is female needed new tires on her Lexus 430SC, which came with runflats as OEM. She was going to go with the non-runflats but her dad talked her into getting them again because of the safety factor. He didn't think she needed to be trying to change or even use the goo-inflator on the side of the road somewhere out in the middle of nowhere on a busy highway. Of course, a cell phone call could get a wrecker/tire service to assist her, but then you never know when you might not have coverage or low cell battery, etc. I went with non-runflats when the OEMs when smooth and got the M-Mobility kit they sell for the M3. Thus far, no regrets...the lighter tires and lighter aftermarket wheels make a big diff in ride and handling.

Oh I completely agree and understand your point and agree with it. It's much safer. That's why i said they're a godsend. I just wish we had the option.

B/c I was in a bind at the time I replaced the last tire I didn't go ahead and buy non-rfts and order the spare tire. I plan to do that next time I change them all.

[spitpilot]

Originally Posted by Couch

Oh I completely agree and understand your point and agree with it. It's much safer. That's why i said they're a godsend. I just wish we had the option.

B/c I was in a bind at the time I replaced the last tire I didn't go ahead and buy non-rfts and order the spare tire. I plan to do that next time I change them all.

So enuff with the "safety" issue of being able to drive on a run flat...I've never had a family car with a flat tire in an "unsafe" location and that includes my cars and my adult childen's..so we're talking decades and decades of driving...my flats have come as slow leaks, flat tire in a parking lot..but mostly from me inspecting tires and pullin a nail in my garage!..Sure I know it can happen..like jets crash, people slip 'n fall hit their heads and die..but are ya gonna stop flyin or walkin for safety? Runflats are a PITA solution to this issue..if folks are scared of havin a flat tire in an "unsafe location"...why not offer solid rubber tires like the real old daze as a "Ultimate Tire Safety Option"?...Instead they foist this costly and unwieldy design on all of us!...Anybody read the "run flat" rules in BMW's owner's manual?...You can only drive 30 miles with full load..Medium load..90 miles, light load 155 miles....Now if you're "in the back country" on a weekend road trip..Sunday afternoon may find you well beyond even the best of these ranges...so you're SOL!...Not gonna find a BMW run flat on a Sunday in most places!...Spare tire will get you home!...And you get to have smoother, long lasting regular tires to choose for your car...at significantly less cost...and most tire shops/gas stations can patch regular tires..not all have tire machines that can R&R a stiff low profile runflat! Not BMW's finest hour! I've always admired their automotive engineering level, but not in this case!

[Edward]

Nice. Patching from the inside is always good as new. I think your RFT is totally fine since you didn't even lose pressure on it or drive on the sidewalls. I understand BMW not fixing RFTs though. How are they to know if some guy lied and said the sidewall is not compromised...only to get in a wreck and bring a class action lawsuit against them? Smart move by BMW. However, I would prefer if they didn't go the cost cutting route and start putting RFTs on their cars in the first place.

I don't see why everyone hates RFTs so much. I've been on 19 inch Pirelli P-Zero RFTs for 1700 miles now on my new car and in LA nonetheless where they are only now starting to repave a lot of the beat up roads. I've got no complaints except that I am weary of my rims cracking or my sidewall bubbling. I'm wondering at what threshold a bubble will form because I've hit a few decent sized potholes at night and upon inspection, I'm still ok.

[F32Fleet]

Originally Posted by roundel335

So this is the big downside of run-flats...basically, they're only able to be used once when they lose pressure, requiring a replacement. The problem that a lot of folks don't think about is what if the tires are at half tread depth or better? It's going to throw things way out of balance if you have one new tire and 1 or 3 others that are worn down - grip will be different, etc. That's somewhat of a safety concern, which woul require you to at the very least buy one additional tire to put on the opposite side of the car. This gets expensive quickly, considering the high cost of run-flats.

It's not run-flats, it's in general.

#1 When it comes to patching a tire there is no difference between RFT and non-RFT. Tire shops in general will not patch ANY tire with a puncture on the shoulder or sidewall.

#2 The speed rating on any tire is voided when it's repaired.

#3 The stated distance you can travel on a RFT (~50 miles at 55 mph) is voided once it has been run while flat.

#4 Did you know that a "donut" tire is single use and has a max range of 50 miles? You're supposed to buy a new one once you've used it. This mitigates some of the supposed "high cost" of RFT replacement.

#5 Any shop that says RFT's can't be patched/plugged is really telling you he doesn't want the hassle or risk of damaging your rim OR his shop doesn't do tire repair in general.


My own personal experience, I had both of my rear tires plugged on my prev-E90(330, w spt pkg). No problems.

Good luck.

[Britter]

Originally Posted by spitpilot

So enuff with the "safety" issue of being able to drive on a run flat...I've never had a family car with a flat tire in an "unsafe" location and that includes my cars and my adult childen's..so we're talking decades and decades of driving...my flats have come as slow leaks, flat tire in a parking lot..but mostly from me inspecting tires and pullin a nail in my garage!..Sure I know it can happen..like jets crash, people slip 'n fall hit their heads and die..but are ya gonna stop flyin or walkin for safety? Runflats are a PITA solution to this issue..if folks are scared of havin a flat tire in an "unsafe location"...why not offer solid rubber tires like the real old daze as a "Ultimate Tire Safety Option"?...Instead they foist this costly and unwieldy design on all of us!...Anybody read the "run flat" rules in BMW's owner's manual?...You can only drive 30 miles with full load..Medium load..90 miles, light load 155 miles....Now if you're "in the back country" on a weekend road trip..Sunday afternoon may find you well beyond even the best of these ranges...so you're SOL!...Not gonna find a BMW run flat on a Sunday in most places!...Spare tire will get you home!...And you get to have smoother, long lasting regular tires to choose for your car...at significantly less cost...and most tire shops/gas stations can patch regular tires..not all have tire machines that can R&R a stiff low profile runflat! Not BMW's finest hour! I've always admired their automotive engineering level, but not in this case!

Totally agree here. My personal experence as a drving sales person having put 260K on my last car with 4 sets of tires (all sets were different brands BTW) I never had a flat, blow out, or used the spare tire in 9 years I had it. I feel that if you change tires before the wear bars and check them for embedded objects you will really reduce the chance of unexpected flats. And by the way my sales job takes me to Industrial Plants and construction sites on a daily basis not just nice clean office parking lots.
-mb

[ENINTY]

Can we just dispense with this silly notion that run flats are sooooo much heavier than convention tires. Go to the tire rack and compare the Bridgestone RE050 RFT and the Bridgestone RE050 Pole Position tires (basically the same tire except one is a RFT) for a BMW 325 w/ sport package. The RFT is 1 pound heavier for the front tire and 2 pounds heavier for the rear tire. So RFTs for the E90 (17" wheel) is a total of 6 pounds for a set of tires.

[RoundelM3]

^Really...so the ability to hold up approximately 1,000 lbs. loading per corner takes only 1 lb. of additional material on the front and 2 lb. on the rear? Nonetheless, I don't care for the stiff sidewalls and the expense of the replacement cost. As far as patching being the same for runflats and non-runflats, of course you don't patch a sidewall puncture or tear - that's a given. I've had non-runflats plugged because of a nail in the tread and went on to drive thousands more miles, never any problems. And like another poster in the thread, I've had 1 flat in the past 15 years, and none that I can remember prior to that. All the cars were Porsches or BMWs with Z-rated tires. I agree that it should be an option, as the 5th tire and jack are about equal to the additional cost of the runflats. My biggest other issue with the Bridgestones are the poor treadwear number for the rears - 140. I was lucky to get 13K miles on them.

[sneaks]

Patched my runflat 20000km's ago. In my driveway with a plug kit.
$5.99
Took 10 minutes.
Not supposed to this, not supposed to that.... 99/100 times it'll be just fine.

[ENINTY]

Originally Posted by roundel335

^Really...so the ability to hold up approximately 1,000 lbs. loading per corner takes only 1 lb. of additional material on the front and 2 lb. on the rear? Nonetheless, I don't care for the stiff sidewalls and the expense of the replacement cost. As far as patching being the same for runflats and non-runflats, of course you don't patch a sidewall puncture or tear - that's a given. I've had non-runflats plugged because of a nail in the tread and went on to drive thousands more miles, never any problems. And like another poster in the thread, I've had 1 flat in the past 15 years, and none that I can remember prior to that. All the cars were Porsches or BMWs with Z-rated tires. I agree that it should be an option, as the 5th tire and jack are about equal to the additional cost of the runflats. My biggest other issue with the Bridgestones are the poor treadwear number for the rears - 140. I was lucky to get 13K miles on them.

Really; but I'm not advocating run-flats either. I just wanted to point out that a lot of people use the excuse of RFT's being way heavier than standard tires as the reason to switch to non RFTs. Your point about the lousy tread wear is the exact reason I switched to non-RFTs over 100,000 miles ago on my car. I do think that, at least for the sport package (do you get a BMW any other way?), the Bridgestones are ultra-high performance summer tires where one would expect poor longevity anyway.

My real issue is that even now, 5 years after the introduction of the E90, there are not a lot of choices in a RFT for the car. You can't get (at least the last time I checked) a high performance all-season tire in a RFT configuration for the sport package wheel size combination. I was willing to give up a bit of grip for an additional 10,000 miles of treadwear and moved to a non-RFT setup. If the tire industry had a RFT comparable to the Yokahama W4S that I use on my car, I'd go back to run flats just for the security to compensate for no spare. I think RFTs are a good idea, just poorly executed within the auto/tire industry.

[FJc335]

Originally Posted by sneaks

Patched my runflat 20000km's ago. In my driveway with a plug kit.
$5.99
Took 10 minutes.
Not supposed to this, not supposed to that.... 99/100 times it'll be just fine.

i was just gonna ask about plugging.... thanks

[mmmmQuattro]

Originally Posted by Britter

Totally agree here. My personal experence as a drving sales person having put 260K on my last car with 4 sets of tires (all sets were different brands BTW) I never had a flat, blow out, or used the spare tire in 9 years I had it. I feel that if you change tires before the wear bars and check them for embedded objects you will really reduce the chance of unexpected flats. And by the way my sales job takes me to Industrial Plants and construction sites on a daily basis not just nice clean office parking lots.
-mb

You were lucky!
I went 7 years in my last 330 not a flat once.
Then within 6 months twice in my 335 on runflats. Maybe they have magnetic belts that attract nails!

There is no problem fixing a runflat if it hasn't actually gone flat.

[Couch]

Originally Posted by spitpilot

So enuff with the "safety" issue of being able to drive on a run flat...I've never had a family car with a flat tire in an "unsafe" location and that includes my cars and my adult childen's..so we're talking decades and decades of driving...my flats have come as slow leaks, flat tire in a parking lot..but mostly from me inspecting tires and pullin a nail in my garage!..Sure I know it can happen..like jets crash, people slip 'n fall hit their heads and die..but are ya gonna stop flyin or walkin for safety? Runflats are a PITA solution to this issue..if folks are scared of havin a flat tire in an "unsafe location"...why not offer solid rubber tires like the real old daze as a "Ultimate Tire Safety Option"?...Instead they foist this costly and unwieldy design on all of us!...Anybody read the "run flat" rules in BMW's owner's manual?...You can only drive 30 miles with full load..Medium load..90 miles, light load 155 miles....Now if you're "in the back country" on a weekend road trip..Sunday afternoon may find you well beyond even the best of these ranges...so you're SOL!...Not gonna find a BMW run flat on a Sunday in most places!...Spare tire will get you home!...And you get to have smoother, long lasting regular tires to choose for your car...at significantly less cost...and most tire shops/gas stations can patch regular tires..not all have tire machines that can R&R a stiff low profile runflat! Not BMW's finest hour! I've always admired their automotive engineering level, but not in this case!

I have never had the blowout, etc either. And if you've ever seen any of my other posts on RFT's I'm completely against them. We as consumers should be given the option and shouldn't be forced to have these equiped on the cars. And from my experience, as you said about people not having the rft's in stock is so true. It's why I've said the need for a spare tire even with the rft's is there. I had to take a day off work b/c of it.

[RoundelM3]

Originally Posted by ENINTY

Really; but I'm not advocating run-flats either. I just wanted to point out that a lot of people use the excuse of RFT's being way heavier than standard tires as the reason to switch to non RFTs. Your point about the lousy tread wear is the exact reason I switched to non-RFTs over 100,000 miles ago on my car. I do think that, at least for the sport package (do you get a BMW any other way?), the Bridgestones are ultra-high performance summer tires where one would expect poor longevity anyway.

My real issue is that even now, 5 years after the introduction of the E90, there are not a lot of choices in a RFT for the car. You can't get (at least the last time I checked) a high performance all-season tire in a RFT configuration for the sport package wheel size combination. I was willing to give up a bit of grip for an additional 10,000 miles of treadwear and moved to a non-RFT setup. If the tire industry had a RFT comparable to the Yokahama W4S that I use on my car, I'd go back to run flats just for the security to compensate for no spare. I think RFTs are a good idea, just poorly executed within the auto/tire industry.

We do think alike on this subject. My lighter wheels probably helped more than the tires with regard to unsprung weight, but there is a noticeable difference in ride and handling. I'm currently running Goodyear Eagle F1 Assymetrics and getting about 15K miles out of the rears, which is good for UHP summer tires (not much need for 4-season tires here in Central TX), but the last set of Yokos I ran (AVS-ES100 on an E46 ZHP) only lasted 8500 miles.

[chromisdesigns]

Originally Posted by Edward

I don't see why everyone hates RFTs so much. I've been on 19 inch Pirelli P-Zero RFTs for 1700 miles now on my new car and in LA nonetheless where they are only now starting to repave a lot of the beat up roads. I've got no complaints except that I am weary of my rims cracking or my sidewall bubbling. I'm wondering at what threshold a bubble will form because I've hit a few decent sized potholes at night and upon inspection, I'm still ok.

Funny! There are just fine, except every time you run over a pavement seam you worry if the rims are gonna break or the tires bubble!

Get yourself some real tires, when the RFT's crap out after 15K miles, and stop worrying.

[chromisdesigns]

Originally Posted by Socom

#4 Did you know that a "donut" tire is single use and has a max range of 50 miles? You're supposed to buy a new one once you've used it. This mitigates some of the supposed "high cost" of RFT replacement.

That's not correct -- there is a 50 mph / 80 kph speed limit on the donuts, but they can be run as long as they have legal tread.

[ENINTY]

Originally Posted by roundel335

We do think alike on this subject. My lighter wheels probably helped more than the tires with regard to unsprung weight, but there is a noticeable difference in ride and handling. I'm currently running Goodyear Eagle F1 Assymetrics and getting about 15K miles out of the rears, which is good for UHP summer tires (not much need for 4-season tires here in Central TX), but the last set of Yokos I ran (AVS-ES100 on an E46 ZHP) only lasted 8500 miles.

When I switched to my new set up I was looking for minimum tire wear with little loss in handling. I went with 18 x 8.5 VMR CSLs and the Yoks all around so I could rotate tires front to back. I now get 35K out of a set and I really didn't notice a big loss in handling or braking performance. I've stayed away from UHP summers because of the wear issues. Driving 40K a year means I need to get to most for the buck out of my treads.