Runflats v Conventional Tyred

Bendihorse

I have changed the tyres on my mini cooper from runflats to regular tyres and WHAT a difference :eek:
Before my car was getting bashed and smashed everywhere i went on Irish roads (as was i, you couldn't see your way to travelling any long distance in it) so im delighted with the outcome...

Just one problem, i have no spare wheel! So now i still cant see my way to travelling a long distances in case i get a puncture!

Ok so its a mini, far from the most practical car on the road to buy, but the least you would expect is somewhere to put a spare wheel/spacer?

My car has the Aero kit on it, along with 17inch cooper s alloys which i understand, only come with runflats tyres.
My question is are ALL minis on runflats? I understood that the Mini One and Cooper - all other versions apart from the cooper s were on conventional tyres?

Im hoping this is the case and that there is somewhere on the car to put a spare wheel that is unknown to me... That would be :cool:

niceirishfella

yeah, run flats are right "see you next thursdays" for ruining the ride on ANY car - only now are BMW getting the right suspension set ups to match with run flats.
but your better off with normal tryes - cheaper and easier on the spine and your wee car!
Re; your quandry - just get a quality 12V compressor and can of tyre foam (in fact get 2) and throw them in the boot. That should sort you in the event of a puncture to get you to a tyre place.

Bendihorse

Thanks NIF, Will using that foam stuff mean that the tyre has to be replaced, or can the puncture be repaired and the tyre put back on the car afterwards?

(I have a compressor from a Q7 already so got that one sorted ;-))

Anan1

Bendihorse wrote: »

Thanks NIF, Will using that foam stuff mean that the tyre has to be replaced, or can the puncture be repaired and the tyre put back on the car afterwards?

I'll second niceirishfella's foam & compressor advice. The tyre can be repaired afterwards, the foam just washes out. The only thing to bear in mind is that the foam will only repair punctures in the tread, not damage to the sidewall. Maybe join the AA, just in case?;)

pburns

Runflats are a terrible idea IMHO...:mad:

I don't know enough to comment in any great detail about the ride. Many commentators say BMW is now getting on top of that particular problem. But the whole idea is ill-conceived in my opinion and especially unsuited to our pock-marked Irish roads.

The motoring section of last Wednesdays Irish Times had a letter from a BMW owner who was told by a number of tyre suppliers that a simple puncture (no tyre-wall damage) could not be repaired on a run-flat. Disbelieving, she contacted BMW Ireland and was told the same thing. Also, whilst they understood the cost involved (a run-flat ain't cheap!), this disadvantage was negated by the greater safety of run-flat...blah, blah...b011ix...

Now I don't know if this is 100% true... If it is i'm shocked and it opens up a whole set of imponderables. For example, what happens when the car is second- or third-hand and the cost of a set of tyres is unjustifiable given the value of the motor?

I'm a luddite - give me a full size spare any day. At the very least give me a space-saver. But don't for fecks sake give me a can of foamy stuff and an AA recovery number or I'll wrap a tyre-iron round your neck!

MarkN

400 quid a corner for the runflats on my 335... it's a pretty high price to pay for a damn harsh ride on 19s.

BMW will void your warranty if you put anything else on the car I am told.

I don't know what benefit run flats have (I can change a tyre all on my own thanks!) apart from a woman bring stranded on her own and getting a puncture.

If anyone knows any other benefit (possibly saving space/weight) could you let me know?!

Anan1

pburns wrote: »

The motoring section of last Wednesdays Irish Times had a letter from a BMW owner who was told by a number of tyre suppliers that a simple puncture (no tyre-wall damage) could not be repaired on a run-flat. Disbelieving, she contacted BMW Ireland and was told the same thing. Also, whilst they understood the cost involved (a run-flat ain't cheap!), this disadvantage was negated by the greater safety of run-flat...blah, blah...b011ix...

Run-flat tyres are repairable just like any other tyre. My mother has an E90 with runflats. They do ride a little harder than conventional tyres, but they're a lot more practical. She's had two punctures so far, both times she just continued driving and had the punctures repaired later the same day. As you can imagine, she's a happy camper.

Anan1

MarkN wrote: »

400 quid a corner for the runflats on my 335... it's a pretty high price to pay for a damn harsh ride on 19s.

19"s on RFTs?? I'd imagine Fred Flintstone's car rides better! Could you not have specified 17"s?

MarkN

I wouldn't put 17" wheels on a car with 300+ bhp and the arches would swallow them up and look horrid anyway.

The only time there is a problem is on potholes but then I physically feel pain for the car.

The proof in the pudding for me is the fact that BMW have put normal tyres on the new M3.

niceirishfella

Anan1 wrote: »

I'll second niceirishfella's foam & compressor advice. The tyre can be repaired afterwards, the foam just washes out. The only thing to bear in mind is that the foam will only repair punctures in the tread, not damage to the sidewall. Maybe join the AA, just in case?;)

Anan's right - joining the AA might not be any harm - check you insurance policy - you might have 24hr roadside assistance on the policy?
My wife does - but did'nt know it.

E92

The main advantage of run flat tyres is safety. The potential hazard of blow outs is all but eliminated. And you can go 150 miles before you have to change them(at only 80 km/h though).

The other advantages are the extra boot space because there's no spare wheel, and because the car is lighter, perfromance, economy and emissions are imporved.

The big disadvantage of them is of course ride comfort. They really are yucky. I absolutely hate them. The E60 sucks on 17's, God only knows how bad the bigger ones are. The E90 is fine on 16's though, but I imagine M Sport models and/or models with bigger tyres are horrid.

BMW and MINI will invalidate your warranty if you replace run flats with standard tyres. In the case of the 5 series this is appalling and completely inexcusable, if you click the "Current Product Catalogue" on this page, and go towards the last few pages where the equipment is listed, you will see that in the continent not only do BMW offer 16 inch wheels with non run flat tyres(they used to offer non run flat tyres on 16 inch wheels only until they facelifted the car here), but and this drives me mad, you can also get 17 inch wheels without run flat tyres too. And yet if you put non run flats on your 5 series here you can say goodbye to your warranty. What's even more annoying is that there is space in the boot for a spare tyre in the 5 series too:mad::mad:.

Why doesn't BMW GB or BMW Ireland offer us this option, especially as if you read BMW car you will know that there is endless complaints about the run flat tyres (especially with the E60/E61)?

This to me is completely inexcusable. Anyone here connected to BMW like to explain this:(?

Anan1

MarkN wrote: »

I wouldn't put 17" wheels on a car with 300+ bhp and the arches would swallow them up and look horrid anyway.

The only time there is a problem is on potholes but then I physically feel pain for the car.

The proof in the pudding for me is the fact that BMW have put normal tyres on the new M3.

I think the problem with RFTs is that, due to their stiffer sidewall, they effectively mimic a larger rim size. If your car were on 17" RFTs, it would ride better and you'd also have the practicality of not having to stop when you get a puncture. Is the hard ride the fault of the RFTs, or of your dislike for smaller rims?;)

MarkN

I think it's well documented that RFs give a harsher ride, it's not an opinion I've just invented all by myself

Bearing in mind the price of the car alone, I can't think of many cars with 17" wheels on them, it would have very little to do with the owner choosing, I wonder if 17s would clear the discs on a 335 actually?

If buying again would I consider 18s... ? Possibly!

Anan1

MarkN wrote: »

I think it's well documented that RFs give a harsher ride, it's not an opinion I've just invented all by myself

Of course not, what I meant is rather that, going by the few cars i've driven with RFTs, it felt to me as though they added 2" to the rim size, ie a car on 16" RFTs felt as though it was on 18"s. I can therefore only imagine what a car on 19" RFTs would feel like!

MarkN wrote: »

Bearing in mind the price of the car alone, I can't think of many cars with 17" wheels on them, it would have very little to do with the owner choosing, I wonder if 17s would clear the discs on a 335 actually?

That's a good point, i've no idea. Is there even such a thing as a 335iSE? If so, I wonder what size rims it rides on?

MarkN

Anan1 wrote: »

Of course not, what I meant is rather that, going by the few cars i've driven with RFTs, it felt to me as though they added 2" to the rim size, ie a car on 16" RFTs felt as though it was on 18"s.

That's true, the Mini is quite harsh for a car with fairly thick profiles and 16" rims.


Yeh there's an SE alright, they come with 18s though. The M sport does have an 18" option but again, I think visually, don't look right on a car that size.

There are 17" (possibly even 16") wheels available on bog standard 320i cars.

Bendihorse

My boyfriend was driving us to galway the other night, decided to take a shortcut down some back roads through a forrest... anyway, at relatively low speed he hit a small but very deep pothole in the road and wrote off the tire, the wall was pinched, the seal failed and all the air came out. We had to limp it back to his sisters house and park it for the night, thus missed our night out in Galway

Needless to say I was RAGING. What good is a runflat if it effectively square wheels you till the tyre shop opens 2 DAYS later? Completely flawed concept IMO! At least with a spare we could have continued with the journey, albeit a bit dirtier than when we set out.
Also, luckily (or unluckily) for us it happened within driving on runflat distance to home, if we were half way to galway it would never have made it home and someone would have to come and get us.

My car is 04 reg and out of warranty so thats not an issue for me anyway. Boo Hiss at BMW invalidating your warranty if you change to regular tyres, how exactly they justify doing that i dont know?

fletch

Interesting review of run flats here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUFCvLnHaLc

Anan1

Bendihorse wrote: »

My boyfriend was driving us to galway the other night, decided to take a shortcut down some back roads through a forrest... anyway, at relatively low speed he hit a small but very deep pothole in the road and wrote off the tire, the wall was pinched, the seal failed and all the air came out. We had to limp it back to his sisters house and park it for the night, thus missed our night out in Galway

Needless to say I was RAGING. What good is a runflat if it effectively square wheels you till the tyre shop opens 2 DAYS later? Completely flawed concept IMO! At least with a spare we could have continued with the journey, albeit a bit dirtier than when we set out.
Also, luckily (or unluckily) for us it happened within driving on runflat distance to home, if we were half way to galway it would never have made it home and someone would have to come and get us.

My car is 04 reg and out of warranty so thats not an issue for me anyway. Boo Hiss at BMW invalidating your warranty if you change to regular tyres, how exactly they justify doing that i dont know?

Why didn't you just keep going? You were going to have to replace the tyre anyway, so a couple of hundred miles at a reasonable speed wouldn't have made any difference, would it? Another thing to bear in mind is that, without RFTs, you might well have been looking at a new alloy.

Bendihorse

We were in Ballygar at that stage, a good hours drive in normal conditions from Galway city so we weren't going to chance it. I limped the car as far as the tyre shop the following monday and by the time i got there, the tyre had started to come off the rim. The tyre shop was roughly 10 miles away from his sisters house. We wouldn't have made galway on it. Oh, and once there, how would we get home? Bar we stayed on till monday and missed work...

Wouldn't have had to replace the rim, to be honest the only reason the air was lost in the tyre was because theres a slight dent on the inside of the rim from before i bought the car (when it was on RFT's) so there was a weak point in the seal which caused it to break. We didn't actually hit the pothole THAT hard, there was no danger of totalling the rim really, but i take your point.

Anan1

Bendihorse wrote: »

We were in Ballygar at that stage, a good hours drive in normal conditions from Galway city so we weren't going to chance it. I limped the car as far as the tyre shop the following monday and by the time i got there, the tyre had started to come off the rim. The tyre shop was roughly 10 miles away from his sisters house. We wouldn't have made galway on it. Oh, and once there, how would we get home? Bar we stayed on till monday and missed work...

Wouldn't have had to replace the rim, to be honest the only reason the air was lost in the tyre was because theres a slight dent on the inside of the rim from before i bought the car (when it was on RFT's) so there was a weak point in the seal which caused it to break. We didn't actually hit the pothole THAT hard, there was no danger of totalling the rim really, but i take your point.

Sorry, I forgot that the car was no longer on RFTs! If you'd still been on RFTs though, you could have driven a couple of hundred miles on the tyre as long as you didn't go too fast. The downside of RFTs is the ride, the upside is that a puncture won't inconvenience you as much.

Bendihorse

Wires Crossed! It was on runflats when that happened, i have changed to regualr tyres since. Even with the runflat the tyre was coming off the rim by the time i got to the garage, it was coming off where the wall was pinched.

In conventional 'pin prick/nail in the thread' type punctures it would have lasted a bit longer and perhaps the drive to Galway as i could have kept the tyre pumped up along the way, but this was pancake flat, seal gone, no air. There is NO WAY any tyre would last an hours driving with the steel rim sitting directly on it and no air in the tyre. (Especially on windy roads with a lot of tight turns.

MercMad

Well that has put me off buying a BMW then !

In wouldn't want to suffer the harsh ride, the extra expense and the lack of a spare unit !

Nowdays you are just as likely to damage a rim as a tyre so you would need a spare IMO

I dont like the way BMW dictate that whole warranty business either, is it even lawful ?

I dont see the advantage anyway. In the last 8 years we've had two punctures, one only last Monday when my wife got one about 3 miles from where I work, so I jumped into the van and drove up with a compressor and pumped it and drove another mile to the tyre shop.

That was a fluke but generally as mentioned wouldn't a compressor and tyre foam sort you out and get you home 90% of the time ?

Anan1

Bendihorse wrote: »

Wires Crossed! It was on runflats when that happened, i have changed to regualr tyres since. Even with the runflat the tyre was coming off the rim by the time i got to the garage, it was coming off where the wall was pinched.

In conventional 'pin prick/nail in the thread' type punctures it would have lasted a bit longer and perhaps the drive to Galway as i could have kept the tyre pumped up along the way, but this was pancake flat, seal gone, no air. There is NO WAY any tyre would last an hours driving with the steel rim sitting directly on it and no air in the tyre. (Especially on windy roads with a lot of tight turns.

Unless MINI RFTs are different from BMW ones? My mother has RFTs on her 320d, I think they're 17". Even with zero pressure, the punctured tyre is visually almost indistinguishable from the others. The sidewall is so thick that it completely supports the weight of the car. The car tends to wander a bit more than usual, but 50km/h is absolutely no problem.

pburns

MarkN wrote: »

400 quid a corner for the runflats on my 335... it's a pretty high price to pay for a damn harsh ride on 19s.

BMW will void your warranty if you put anything else on the car I am told.

I don't know what benefit run flats have (I can change a tyre all on my own thanks!) apart from a woman bring stranded on her own and getting a puncture.

If anyone knows any other benefit (possibly saving space/weight) could you let me know?!

Mark - you know your cars and do your research when changing but 19-inchers on run-flats!:eek: What did you expect!?

I feel like I'm always having a go at you but to sacrifice such an elementry thing as ride comfort/handling* for looks - I just don't understand it.

*I say handling because unless you spend your time driving on billard-smooth surfaces I suspect the cars gonna be quite 'skittish' when making progress down a country road with undulations - the type of road you should be taking the long way home from work to relish with the 'ultimate driving machine'...

Anan1

pburns wrote: »

but to sacrifice such an elementry thing as ride comfort/handling* for looks - I just don't understand it.

In fairness to Mark, he's hardly alone in this. I don't understand it either, but it would appear that most people place looks above ability in their choice of wheels.

Bendihorse

Anan1 wrote: »

Unless MINI RFTs are different from BMW ones? My mother has RFTs on her 320d, I think they're 17". Even with zero pressure, the punctured tyre is visually almost indistinguishable from the others. The sidewall is so thick that it completely supports the weight of the car. The car tends to wander a bit more than usual, but 50km/h is absolutely no problem.

As i said, with a normal puncture this would be possible for a certain amount of kilometers over a pretty good road without many tight turns (tight turning will pull the tyre away from the rim...

The tyre wall on my car got damaged, the comprimised wall meant the tyre was not able to support the weight of the car and last the distance. After we hit the pothole, the tyre looked fine, but it was anything but by the time i reached the tyre shop! It had bulged out and away from the edge of the rim, which meant the rim was cutting down and into the inside of the the tyre. Wouldn't have lasted another 5 miles.

The moral of the story is that runflats DO work if you get a regualr run of the mill puncture, but if its anything other than that, your basically fooked.

Anan1

My understanding is that runflats work by having a reinforced sidewall that is thick/strong enough to suport the weight of the car without air pressure. If you hit the pothole hard enough to destroy that then I really can't see how your wheel could have survived had you been on normal tyres. That said, i'm not an expert on tyres -i'm just reasoning from the little I do know.:)

Bendihorse

Anan1 wrote: »

If you hit the pothole hard enough to destroy that then I really can't see how your wheel could have survived had you been on normal tyres. That said, i'm not an expert on tyres -i'm just reasoning from the little I do know.:)

Quoted from previous post:

"Wouldn't have had to replace the rim, to be honest the only reason the air was lost in the tyre was because theres a slight dent on the inside of the rim from before i bought the car (when it was on RFT's) so there was a weak point in the seal which caused it to break. We didn't actually hit the pothole THAT hard, there was no danger of totalling the rim really, but i take your point."

The moral of my story is that if we had a spare tyre/spacer, i could have went to Galway, had a great night out in my new LBD drinking and dancing with my BF and my friends, not stuck sitting at home lookin at the tele

Anan1

Bendihorse wrote: »

"Wouldn't have had to replace the rim, to be honest the only reason the air was lost in the tyre was because theres a slight dent on the inside of the rim from before i bought the car (when it was on RFT's) so there was a weak point in the seal which caused it to break. We didn't actually hit the pothole THAT hard, there was no danger of totalling the rim really, but i take your point."

Lack of air pressure shouldn't be a factor, RFTs are designed to be driven on for extended periods with zero air pressure. I've done it myself, on windy back roads. If your tyre was coming off the rim after only a few miles then surely the reinforced sidewall must have been damaged?

Bendihorse

Quoted:

"The tyre wall on my car got damaged, the comprimised wall meant the tyre was not able to support the weight of the car and last the distance. After we hit the pothole, the tyre looked fine, but it was anything but by the time i reached the tyre shop! It had bulged out and away from the edge of the rim, which meant the rim was cutting down and into the inside of the the tyre. Wouldn't have lasted another 5 miles."

Anan1

Exactly. And if the impact was enough to destroy the heavily-reinforced sidewall of a RFT then how do you think your alloy would have survived had you been on conventional tyres?;)