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Sedans BMW 3-Series BMW 3-Series Run Flat Tires
2421 messages, Last post on Dec 02, 2009 at 1:06 PM
You are in the BMW 3-Series Forum. Your Hosts are pat & karens
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Replying to: circlew (Sep 06, 2007 6:14 am) I would say when I called the BMW Customer Relations line the rep gave me the line “In theory the tires are superior and offer greater reliability and safety to the consumer.” Of course, in theory and in reality are very different. My wife’s car became un-drivable (the tire collapsed to the rim offering no sufficient support for driving and loss of control) when the RFT when flat, and it took the dealer more than 24 hours to fix it and I lost half a day at the office waiting for the tow truck. She now drives my Accord, because she needs to be safe and not stranded on the side of the road at night without a spare waiting for a tow truck for a simple flat tire. As an example of how to address this issue, if you buy a rally edition car from Mitsubishi (such as the Lancer) they make a point of telling you about the limited lifetime of the chosen tires. I have to side with Tan2 here and say BMW, at a minimum, is deceptive about the benefits and lifetime of the RFT given the knowledge available today. Hopefully with discussions like this we will start seeing more attention paid to these issues in more consumer reports, such as Edmunds.
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Replying to: shipo (Sep 06, 2007 6:43 am) I asked the dealer the same question, and they said "Yes, you can mount regular tires. However, the car (suspension) is not designed to support these tires and it will invalidate your warranty." Got the same story from customer relations. At this point I'm probably just going to buy a spare RFT and a jack and leave it sitting in the trunk for the next flat tire.
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Replying to: shipo (Sep 06, 2007 6:43 am) My car does have RFT (wish it didn't). Here's my response... 1. Just wondering -why does visual appearance matter? I'm petite and was able to touch the rim of the tire just by putting a little weight on it. My tire had a nail in it. I got into the car - usually don't check my tires all the time and started to drive. I heard an awfully loud sound and the drive was awful so I didn't feel it was safe to continue. 2. BMW dealer told me that the car is not designed to have any other wheels but RFT because of the suspension. Of course, I can put other tires on it but am I further risking myself? In addition, BMW will then be able to argue that they didn't recommend this and thus not liable. 3. Although hesitant to do so, BMW quoted $1800. This includes regular tire, spare and the jack. BMW e'ees acknowlege that there are problems with these tires. So what are they waiting for a fatality? |
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Here we go again... The fact is that any suspension that is tuned for RFT tires will perform BETTER with lighter GFTs. Why? Simple, the more unsprung weight any vehicle has at each corner, the worse the ride and handling will be, this has been a basic truism for literally decades. Unsprung weigh is unsprung weight is unsprung weight, and RFTs are both heavy and stiff. Every report I've read from folks who've switch their E90 or E60 over to GFTs has raved about the improvement in both the ride and handling departments. As for the preposterous notion that mounting GFTs on a late model BMW will void the warranty, not happening. Why? By law BMW cannot void any warranty on any individual component that is unrelated to any owner installed aftermarket components, additionally, if a failure occurs, they need to PROVE that the aftermarket components directly caused the failure. Said another way, they cannot void the warranty on the car at large just because you put GFTs on your car. With the above in mind, what warranty items will be negatively affected? The tires? BMW doesn't cover the tires anyway so what's the difference? The suspension? Lighter GFTs will cause less suspension wear, so no issue there. The brakes? Lighter GFTs store less energy when rotating, and as such require less braking force to slow the car from any given speed, so no issue here either. Anything else? I doubt it. Regarding risk: Only drivers can answer the following questions for themselves. 1) Would you feel safe enough with four standard GFTs plus a jack and a spare in the trunk? 2) Would you feel safe enough with four standard GFTs and a can of tire goo or something like the Continental Tire ContiComfortKit in the trunk? 3) Would you feel safe enough with four RFTs and no spare? 4) Would you feel safe enough with four RFTs plus a jack and a spare in the trunk? Best Regards, Shipo
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Replying to: ash1924 (Sep 06, 2007 7:12 am) Total BS. Ask them to point to the section of the warranty that says this. As long as the tire is the correct size and is mounted professionally (as opposed to you doing it with a screwdriver), they cannot invalidate the warranty. Edit: Dealers will try to talk people into anything, as long as they sound convincing. Ask them to put it in writing, and it's another story. When I was buying my Lexus, the sales manager asked what other cars I was looking at. I told him the BMW 530i, and he said that BMW was getting rid of their free maintenance program; when I asked his source, he said he read it in 'one of the trade papers' but he didn't remember which one. Nice try. When I was at the dealer another time I asked the parts department for a quote on some winter tires. As expected they were about twice as expensive as TireRack. The parts guy told me that TireRack only sold factory reject and blemished tires, which is why they were so cheap. Yeah... right. I'm really sick of this "regular tires will void the warranty" response. Let 'em try it when I order my 535i! |
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Replying to: shipo (Sep 06, 2007 7:44 am) Who wants to spend that much on a car to find out it is likely that we would have to spend over $1000 annually to maintain these tires. Never had this problem with my SUV - tires were fine for over 30,000 miles. I looked at ASH's statement and agree - shouldn't this have been disclosed to us? As to risk, RFT have been found to wear and tear quicker and unevenly. This could lead to easier punctures to the tire. Compared to regular tires which tend to wear and tear more evenly and generally need to be replaced after 30,000 miles - Yes, I would feel safe with regular tires on my car. There is very little predictability with RFT based on uneven wear. Numerous complaints are being made after just 1000 miles on the car. In my experience, I couldn't drive with the flat RFT and the FTM was not working so I don't feel safe. I want options.... (1) RFT with a spare; or (2) Regular tires with a spare. If you didn't buy a BMW yet, great. You have that opportunity to negotiate but back when I bought this car these issues were new to consumers.
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Replying to: tan2 (Sep 06, 2007 9:24 am) It isn't BMW that is telling you... it's the dealer. Don't take their word for it. I'll provide a little translation: What dealer says: "BMW has tuned the suspension for the run-flat tires, and does not recommend using anything other than run flats. Doing so will void your warranty." What dealer means: "BMW wanted to eliminate the spare tire and save 20% on the wheel & tire cost for the car but not lower the price. Knowing that the run-flats give a harsher ride, they had to change the suspension. If they admitted that go-flat tires gave a better ride, they would have to come up with an excuse as to why they didn't just stick with them in the first place. Also, there is a higher profit for the dealer on run-flats. Oh yeah - please don't notice that they don't use run-flats on any of the M models. Thanks. And that whole warranty thing? I know I'm lying to you, but I'm going to say it anyway in the hope that you will believe me. If you do, and you buy run-flats from me, I'll make more money. Also, I can charge you more to mount and balance them. And if you switch to go-flats, I may be able to talk you into paying for something that I know should be covered by warranty." There ya go. 
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Replying to: bdkinnh (Sep 06, 2007 10:52 am) I know that BMW is making more money off of the RFT however, I am more focused on their deceptive trade practices and safety. We shouldn't be paying this much annually to maintain tires. BMW Warranty generally does not cover tires so lets just drop the whole warranty - not relevant to my points.
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Replying to: ash1924 (Sep 06, 2007 7:05 am) My point is that I knew of the RFT and no spare. I completely understand how that would freak out others. Now that the rubber is good again, I really have no concerns because the service from the Conti's give me a better replacement option as I lease and need to have RFT's when the car is returned. If I bought, I would have used Shipo's GFT approach, be that it differs with the recommendation from BMW (which is utter nonsense). That's like saying "We do not recommend using a manual toothbrush because the electric toothbrush cleans your teeth more effectively"! BTW, I drove over 100 miles at zero pressure after the tire monitor indicated a pressure loss condition (about 15 months ago). Why? Because when I checked the tires, the tire EL42 BS tire did not look like it was flat (which did not register to me at the time that was because the stiffer sidewalls support the weight of the car at that corner). So off I went. It was all highway driving at 65 MPH with little appreciable change in control. Regards, OW |
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Replying to: tan2 (Sep 06, 2007 9:24 am) "Who wants to spend that much on a car to find out it is likely that we would have to spend over $1000 annually to maintain these tires." I'm not quite sure where you get the $1,000 per year number from, as I stated earlier, "A set of four Continental ContiProContact SSR 205/55 HR-16 RFTs is $444 from TireRack. Figure a little over $600 with shipping, taxes, mounting and balancing". These tires should be good for an easy 30,000 to 40,000 miles. Since they are RFTs, they will not cause you to run afoul of your dealer's unjustified bias and all will be well. "As to risk, RFT have been found to wear and tear quicker and unevenly." Ummm, not exactly. The early version of the Bridgestone Turanza EL42 RFTs have been found to wear fast and unevenly. The jury is still out on the second generation of those tires (apparently a different tread compound). Most folks who either got Continental tires from the factory or who got BMW to pay all or part of the cost of converting to the Continentals report MUCH better results from their tires. FWIW, I agree with you on the whole Spare Tire thing. Best Regards, Shipo
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