My tire went flat...I think

I have run flat tires. So yesterday on my way home from work my tire pressure warning came on. I pulled off on the next exit which just so happened to be the exit to my sister's house. I made it there and took my tire pressure in each tire. 3 of the 4 tires were within 3-5 psi of what they should be at and the fourth tire (the front passenger) I could not get ANY reading out of. The gauge read 0...it didn;t move at all! I tried it about 3-4 time because I thought surely there had to be some kind of pressure in there. Nothing. I took it to Tires Plus as they were about to close and the guy did a quick look at it. Neither of us could see any kind of nail in it or puncture or anything. So I drove home and put air in it with my compressor back up to about 30 psi and reset my tire pressure light. When I checked it this morning it had not lost any air. Short of someone letting the air out of my tire, which is highly unlikely, I have no idea what happened! I'm going to Goodyear this afternoon to have the tire checked but I wanted to see if anyone else has ever had this happen to them?

Happen to me before but wasn't sure why. My SA at the time told me that it might be a sensor issue but what they did was to remove the oxygen from all tires and refill with the Nitrogen. Haven't had any issue since. Electronics act up with temperature swings and with the heat we've been having, who knows. luckly you had the RFT on so you could still drive around no problems until you are able to check it out. This is one of the reason's why I haven't changed over to the non-RFT setup, simply because of the convenience.

Even with a runflat you should always carry a mini pump!! Running on with a puncture with no air in the tyre ultimately weakens the tyre wall, it is always best to put air in if you can.
Sometimes you can have a loose valve inner which is just on the cusp of letting air out... best check to see if the valves are tight!!!

If you used a tire gauge and it read 0 then you definitely had a flat. You should revise your post to get read of the "I think" part! It was flat dude, no need to second guess that one.

Now you have to figure out why, if my tires get down to 4 or 5 PSI lower than my ideal pressure the Idrive gives me a low tire warning. So yours went from good to flat real quick. You are doing the right think, watch it and see if it happens again. If it was a slow leak it would have told you when it got down to 26 PSI (assuming you had reset the TPMS system at the 32 psi for the front...I believe from memory at least).

No worries with a run-flat, just do like you did, fill it up with air and then keep an eye on it to see if it happens again. If you lose air rapidly again then you have a problem, what the tire places use to identify a leak is to take a solution of dishwashing soap and water mixed into a spray bottle. Wet an area of the tire and look for the bubbles.

Maybe someone is messing with you and let the air out!

Yeah it definitely read zero. I filled it back up to 32psi this morning and by noon it was down to 25. So there's definitely a slow leak in it. The fact it is leaking out slowly now is what baffles me. I drove about 10 miles before the low pressure warning came on which I'm assuming from what you say comes on at about 26 psi and then drove another 5 miles till I stopped and checked the pressure and read 0. That was a pretty quick drop compared to how slow it's leaking today. I have it at the tire shop now getting it looked at. Hopefully they can repair it, which they said they might be able to or the tire warranty will cover it. The tires were on the car when I bought when I bought it but Goodyear said they should still be covered under warranty even if I don't have the paperwork for them, I'm not the one who originally purchased them, and they are not the place where they were originally purchased at. The tires all almost brand new. That would be awesome!

You could have a cracked rim leaking the air out. There are a lot of problems with the Ellipsoid wheels, having cracks. You can actually hit a pot hole sometime, & trigger the flat tire warning. The tire diameter is monitored by the speed sensor on each wheel. When the diameter changes, the speed of that wheel changes triggering the warning light.

Hope this might help!

+1 on rim crack, that is a good observation. Obviously the air is leaking out while you are driving since you woke up and it stayed full all night. So perhaps with a rim crack it is heating up and expanding a bit when under load. Or the same for the tire.

I hope for your sake that it becomes a warranty Goodyear issue, but when it comes to that kind of stuff it has to be pretty clear cut that the tire failed and it wasn't road hazard damage. This can be up to interpretation some times.

You guys are not going to believe this! So I took the car to Goodyear to have the tire checked. They took it off the car and put it in a big bucket of water to try to find where the puncture/leak is. Apparently there are 2 punctures in the tire but you couldn't tell from just looking at it. It's leaking so slowly because...wait for it...THERE'S SLIME IN THE TIRE! Yes slime! I bought this car only 2 weeks ago. The dealer sold me this car with a tire with slime in it. I know dealers can be sneaky but really! They sure got an earful from me this afternoon! They had to have known the tire was leaking air because they've had it for over a month on their lot. I had already worked a deal on the car because the back tires need to be replaced. As it stands now, I have to replace all 4 tires! It is the tire on the front passenger side, the driver front is fine but these tires are discontinued so I wouldn't be able to buy a matching tire. So since 3 out of the four tires on the car need to be replaced I might as well replace them all. Because the tire had slime in it, it voided the goodyear warranty, they offered to give me a 50% discount to replace the tire with something comparable but then there's still the issue of having to replace the driver's side one too cause it wouldn't match...geesh! Then there's another issue...I now have an "Active Steering Malfunction" light on. I don't know if this has to do with the tire pressure getting low and affecting the steering or what. Thanks guys for all the responses. I seriously don't know what I'd do without this forum haha! I'm quite the spaz!

Oh and I also noticed since the Active steering warning light came on, my turn signals don't go off automatically when I make a turn...I have to turn them off manually. And I'm talking a turn not just switching lanes

Originally Posted by shan904

Oh and I also noticed since the Active steering warning light came on, my turn signals don't go off automatically when I make a turn...I have to turn them off manually. And I'm talking a turn not just switching lanes

For starters I would reset the active steering and dynamic drive. Here are TxTaz's instructions.

Thanks Yorgi! I will try this out and see what happens. Hopefully it doesn't come back on. This is the second time I got this warning. The first time it went out in like 10 minutes by itself. It's staying on this time.

Now that you're going to be changing all four tyres you should consider switching to non-run flats. Quieter, more comfort & better handling. A further bonus is that they're a bit cheaper.

Buy yourself a decent little compressor that plugs in to the cigarette lighter socket & one of those little puncture plug kits.

Yes I totally plan on going with non run flat tires. They are way expensive, most of the time they can't be repaired, regular tires ride better etc. Although it was nice not being stranded on the side of the road with my flat, I must say the cons outweigh the pros with these tires. I am going to make my own little kit with compressor and fix-a flat and then will keep a spare at the house for out of town trips. I also have AAA so that makes me feel a little more comfortable making the switch.

OMG I am having withdrawls from my car! I had new tires put on the front Saturday. Sunday my cousin replaced my rear brakes and come to find out the rear tires are in WAY worse condition than we realized when I bought the car 2 weeks ago :/ So monday I went to get the rear tires replaced. Well...they cracked my rim trying to get the tire off with the wrong machine! Now they have me in a rental...until they get a replacement or repair my rim which would come with a warranty. They said this could take up to 3 days. Like I said I just got my car 2 weeks ago and I haven't been able to really enjoy her yet lol! When I get it back I guess I can fall in love all over again haha! So in the past 2 weeks I have gone from my old ford fusion to my 645 bimmer to a Camry. I'm on a roller coaster!