BMW owners - have you ditched Run Flats?

I replaced mine with Michelin Supersports which are a great tyre in terms of grip, dry and wet, but terrible in terms of noise. I shan't put them on this car again, preferring something more quiet. In terms of ride comfort it is better, but not the night and day I had hoped fore.
 
Dragging up an old thread but...

Fiancés mini cooper s is on 18s (run flats) and looks like there is a choice of bridgestone or pirelli in 205/40/18. Pirelli is the more expensive (£205 vs £165) but seems to have better reviews. Any experience with either? It has an odd mix of 3 bridge stone and 1 pirelli on it now so logic seems to go with 3 pirelli as the other still has 7mm on it.

Before you say ditch them and get non rfts, I have on my z4 coupe, but won't be doing for hers.

Thanks
 
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BennyC said:
Does using Non-RFT's cause issues with the comprehensive warranty? I wouldn't have thought it would?
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If you are talking about the BMW Insured Warranty, I checked this very issue with Mondial and they said that Non-RFTs were fine so long as the dimensions were similar to what the car came from the factory with.

Edit: Wheels and tyres aren't covered by that particular warranty anyway, so it makes sense so long as it doesnt affect your speedometer or brakes/suspension etc.
 
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Yep, ditched them on mine and the difference was night and day. I can also confirm that the BMW warranty isn't affected as mine is in for some warranty work at the moment :)
 
Crimefighter said:
If you are talking about the BMW Insured Warranty, I checked this very issue with Mondial and they said that Non-RFTs were fine so long as the dimensions were similar to what the car came from the factory with.

Edit: Wheels and tyres aren't covered by that particular warranty anyway, so it makes sense so long as it doesnt affect your speedometer or brakes/suspension etc.
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m3ben said:
Yep, ditched them on mine and the difference was night and day. I can also confirm that the BMW warranty isn't affected as mine is in for some warranty work at the moment :)
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Cheers guys.

My E90 had RFT's with CSL Reps. My E92 has 313's with Eagle F1's and from memory (even though they are different cars but with the same suspension & size rims) the non-RFT's are much more pleasant to drive with. Not the most accurate comparison but all I have to go on.
 
Thread resurrection alert! :p

I'm currently in two minds whether to replace my runflats or not as one of the rears is nearing it's end of life.

If I do change them I'm probably looking at about £580 for 4 new conventional tyres and fitting and then another £280 for a spare kit. (I'd rather have the peace of mind with a spare than a can of sealant which may or may not work, depending on which reviews you read.)

So that's a huge initial outlay but with lower maintenance costs vs relatively high replacement costs for the runflats but I'd be able to go through three rears and one front runflat before they started to cost me more!

To be honest, I don't find the ride on the runflats to be that bad really and they're on 19" rims.

What to do...
 
Could always get the BMW Genuine Mobility Kit instead, think it's ~£100 on the well known rainforest website.
 
alx said:
Could always get the BMW Genuine Mobility Kit instead, think it's ~£100 on the well known rainforest website.
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I don't really want to go down the 'can of gunk' route but if I do it will probably be a can of Tyre Weld and a cheap compressor rather than a £100 kit. The fact that many fitters apparently refuse to repair tyres that have been gunked puts me off a bit.
 
I had a look at that kit earlier... How does it differ from Tyre Weld, if at all? That's two for one at £10 in Halfords at the mo.

e: BMW just quoted me £340 for their spare tyre kit! lol :D
 
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Finally got a puncture repaired at the 3rd garage I tried on the Countryman. The others wouldn't repair even though I said it was only 23psi when they light came on for TPMS and Bridgestone say repair is fine if tyre hasn't been below 10psi.... What a faff.
 
[TW]Fox;27787212 said:
In theory yes but in practice 95% of garages will refuse to do it so by the time you finally find one that will you've trashed the sidewall driving around anyway so it's new tyre time.
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Yep this is it spot on

If you drive 50 miles at 50mph then the tyre will be trashed so it wont be repairable at all.

If you drive 5 miles at 30mph it wont be detectable as having been driven on and is completely repairable.

Was having a conversation with the local mini garage a few months back about run flats and they said on the 2nd gen and 3rd gen its almost impossible to tell the difference in how they handle when running on RFT or normals. Obviously with the disclaimer that you compare closely matched tyres. There are no true high performance run flats so obviously if your going top end then you can't compare.

Personally I go run flats, but my commute is 20 miles, most of which is a single carriageway A road, its very busy, mainly unlit and quite bendy. For me its a no brainer that I go runflat, being able to safely drive the journey home and worry about the tyre later is worth 100x the handling diff (if any) and the few quid it costs.

My current car was the opposite to most in that it had started life on normals, it needed tyres when I bought it on about 18k miles and I insisted on run flats. In the end I just got the price reduced and sourced the tyres myself so I ran it on the 3mm approx normals for a month before I got the run flats and I genuinely believe it handles better on the run flats than it did on the normals. The ride isn't quite as forgiving but it just feels a little more stable on some of the twisty bits. But then I prefer a harder ride over softer so anything in reason that hardens the feel from the road I prefer.
 
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