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      08-09-2015, 04:16 AM   #1
richy577
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Run Flat Tyres - Good or Bad?

Thought I would add this thread to get everyone's experience of run flats, here's mine.

I have 50,000 miles on my 3 year old X3. I own two sets of wheels the standard OEM 19" for the Summer with Pirelli RFT and a set of 17" Winter wheels with RFT. I usually put the Winter one's on about November and put the Summers back on about March.

I have about 3mm of tread above the minimum on the 19" at the front and a bit more at the back, so feel they have lasted well, I regularly check the pressures on the tyres and they have always been good.

The Good: I was driving down the Motorway the other day and the tyre pressure loss light came on, continued driving on the tyre and drove to the local garage, the puncture was right in the middle of a rear wheel, it was repaired and I haven't had any problems since. The best bit was not having to stop, I drove straight to the garage without any problems.

The Bad: Two weeks later driving along a similar stretch of road and the tyre pressure light comes on again, drove to the same garage thinking it may have been the original tyre, straight away the mechanic said it was the front wheel, he took the wheel off the car and on the inside of the tyre the wires from inside the tyre wall were coming through in two places. There was no erosion on the side wall from under/over inflation just purely part of the wires coming through which allowed an escape of air.

The tyre could not be driven on as it wouldn't inflate and the side wall had literally gave out after 5 miles to the garage. Now this is a concern as my worry is the other front tyre which still has legal tread may give way too.

I had a good chat with the mechanics as they are an extremely busy tyre replacement garage and they indicated that they do see a lot of issues with damage to RFT's, they indicated it is purely because the RFT's have such a hard side wall that there is no give or flex and time and time again because of speed bumps and poor road conditions they see cracking in both inside and outside side walls resulting in complete tyre failure or needing replacement before their expected time.

So on the whole I did find the wheel great when I had a genuine puncture as it did it's job, but also have seen the bad side where I couldn't drive on it and as the garage couldn't get a wheel until the next day this did cause problems.

Would be interested in anyone else's experience especially regarding side wall degradation. Thanks.
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      08-09-2015, 06:52 AM   #2
akshay1234
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Quote:
Originally Posted by richy577 View Post

So on the whole I did find the wheel great when I had a genuine puncture as it did it's job, but also have seen the bad side where I couldn't drive on it and as the garage couldn't get a wheel until the next day this did cause problems.

Would be interested in anyone else's experience especially regarding side wall degradation. Thanks.
To be honest, in the first case I'm pretty sure you would have made it to the shop anyway since the tyre probably wasn't totally flat. The tyre pressure warning comes on when there is a loss of 3-4 psi. Tubeless tyres lose pressure pretty slowly, even over a couple of days sometimes.

Run flats are good when there is a total loss of pressure, since the sidewalls still support the weight of the car. Arguably, in the second case you may not have even had the sidewall cut if it wasn't a runflat.

I'm switching out my runflats the first chance I get, simply because the ride is far too stiff on them with our shitty roads here.
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