[miopyk]

I was never a fan of runflats because I think the main reason they were invented was economic. In short, the car manufacturer doesn't give you a spare or a jack and if you get a flat there's a chance you may go to a dealer for a replacement. So for them it's a good deal.

Then there was the ride quality. In my Z4 it was appalling and when I put the deposit down on my e93 last year this was the one thing that was niggling me. However a drive in an e92 when they came out last year was enough to convince me that runflat technology had moved on to a point where the additional stiffness in the sidewall was no longer an issue and that was that. My e93 arrived in March and as far as ride/wheel control is concerned I've been pretty happy.

Then my wife got her new Cooper S in September, also fitted with runflats, and the good news was that the ride/handling was better with 17" wheels on the new car compared to her old Cooper with 16" wheels.

Then came the bad news. Within a week of delivery she got a nail in one tyre with less that 200 miles on the clock and having phoned around a number of tyre dealers no one would repair it. The reason given was because of the strengthened sidewall it was impossible to tell how badly damaged the tyre was and that would leave any repairer open to litigation should a repaired tyre fail.

£185 later I concluded that runflats are an economic conspiracy between the car and tyre manufacturers since for them this is a win win situation. Yes we kicked ourselves for not buying tyre insurance from that friendly MINI dealer but as we haven't had a puncture for years you think it won't happen to you. As the old saying goes, you pays your money........

The third part of this issue is the position of insurance companies. Apparently you run the risk of invalidating your policy by replacing runflats with normal tyres as these do not meet the build specification published by the car manufacturer. Then even if you advise them of the change they can charge you an additional premium for modifying your vehicle.

So after all this imagine my annoyance when I found a nail in a rear tyre on my e93 last night. Having looked on line, prices were around the £200 mark and since the current tyres have done about 7K miles I was considering replacing both and keeping the other good tyre as a spare.

So lunchtime today I got the Yellow Pages out to see if I could get a good price and to check stock availability. Now I was getting really depressed, not only were prices nearer the £220-230 mark each, these tyre's are apparently in short supply. Great.

So the last call of the day was to HIQ. I asked for a price and explained that I had a puncture, "we can fix that" said the voice at the end of the phone. I explained that they were runflats, "have you driven it on the rim" said the voice. "No" I said. "Thats great" said the voice, "we can fix that for £18.50 plus VAT". After a few seconds the brain clicked in, "I'll be down in the morning" I said.

So the moral of the story is, be careful with your runflats if you get a puncture and if you're confident that the sidewall isn't damaged phone around and find some one who will fix it.

Good luck

Miopyk

[330cdsport]

I managed to get my 19" RFT fixed a couple of weeks ago. The guy never asked any questions about it at all. There was a ruddy great screw in it too. The only problem was that the screw was fairly close to the edge of the tyre (but no sidewall damage) and the guy said that it may not remain fixed due to the location.
He said to use slime (tyre sealant) in it if it starts to leak. I have some bottles ordered now from Ebay just in case.

[ChrisMWard]

We had a puncture in a PS2 runflat with 1750 miles on the clock. The pressure didn't drop below 30psi at any time so the sidewall wasn't damaged and I would have been quite happy to have it repaired and kept as a spare. Unfortunately the tyre insurance company wanted to retain it and just paid for the new tyre. Shit happens.

Regards

Chris

[RichardM]

I had a puncture repaired in the run flats on the E60 without any problems. I hadn't driven on it whilst flat so I didn't want to pay for a new tyre so I phoned around a few local places and easily found someone to repair it.