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Is there a cuckoo nest in the basement of the 4-cylinder building?

2K views 23 replies 16 participants last post by  pointandgo 
#1 · (Edited)
This weekend was Memorial Day weekend. You know that. At 11 AM on Sunday my rear left tire goes flat. TPMS worked fine, drove less than 1/4 mile to gas station, overinflated the tire and went home. It's 4-5 miles drive and sensonr didn't go off at all. I chose not to drive on flat because I wanted to think it through and consider all options.

After all the thinking (I do have tire and wheel insurance), I decided to go to Tire Rack and get a new set of go-flat Michelin Pilot Super Sports. They were planned to replace Bridgestones at the beginning of October, so it is a bonus for me to have an excuse to thow them into the dumpster sooner.

Now, two important things:

1. I do have a second car (or first car, if you want).

2. I do have winter tires mounted on wheels in the garage.

None of the above is a requirement to purchase and own BMW. However, if I had neither, getting a flat on Sunday in the middle of big holiday weekend would have sucked beyond imagination. Especially for someone who travels 30-40 weeks in a year and gets stuff done during holiday weeks/weekends. Now, I decided to leave the car in the garage until tires arrive at the installer (ETA is Thursday or Friday) and then drive it on either flat or inflated tire (I bought portable compressor) and have them all replaced. However, on Friday I also have an appointment for CDV delete + track inspection at a local indy shop. Rescheduling will be a nightmare because they are super busy and I might be out of town for next 3 weeks after that.

Long story short, I would like to meet the person that decided the spare tire is unnecessary. In a dark alley. With a BIG baseball bat.
 
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#2 · (Edited)
I agree with you on the spare issue. I am a proponent of RFTs because of the safety factor. Yours was a flat from a "slow" leak. That is easy enough to deal with. But if you had been driving down the freeway/interstate at 75 mph and had a blow out the RFTs would have given you a big advantage.

If it was me I would take the car to Discount Tire or some other tire shop and have the tire repaired with a patch. As long as you keep the tire aired up when you're driving having it repaired should be no problem as long as the puncture is in the repairable zone of the tire. Unless the leak is a fast leak rather than a slow leak, there's no reason you can't drive the car over the weekend.

BMW is not alone in dropping the spare tire when they start using RFTs. It's going on across the industry and it will continue.

RFTs have definite advantages and disadvantages.
 
#6 ·
If it was me I would take the car to Discount Tire or some other tire shop and have the tire repaired with a patch. As long as you keep the tire aired up when you're driving having it repaired should be no problem as long as the puncture is in the repairable zone of the tire. Unless the leak is a fast leak rather than a slow leak, there's no reason you can't drive the car over the weekend.
Yes, but they were closed yesterday and today - as far as I know. The problem wasn't WHAT to do with it - again, I do have tire/wheel insurance and could have gone for a new tire and ditch it in a week, who cares, didn't cost me anything. The problem was WHERE to do anything. I might as well have been in 25-souls-1-intersection-1-gas-station village in the middle of Arizona desert.

I normally gripe about run-flats, but this isn't about them, it is the lack of the spare tire that makes me wonder about some people's sanity (thread title).
 
#3 ·
Sorry, Mark! Congrats on the impending upgrades. While I'm a very big fan of the CDV delete, we all know tires are about a million times more important. Reschedule if need be, and since you're away for 3-4 weeks, I bet they would have an opening soon after your return.

I plan on buying the same tires either tomorrow or Wednesday (the last day of the $70 card promotion). I will be out of the town for the week after, so I want the tires to sit at the shop for the shortest time possible, while still getting in on the promo.

If I got shadowline and different wheels, our cars would be twins!
 
#7 ·
I plan on buying the same tires either tomorrow or Wednesday (the last day of the $70 card promotion). I will be out of the town for the week after, so I want the tires to sit at the shop for the shortest time possible, while still getting in on the promo.

If I got shadowline and different wheels, our cars would be twins!
You might be able to get them for the weekend. Just look at the list of installers in your area and see if some are open on Saturdays/Sundays. My order will ship tomorrow and be delivered Thursday or Friday (I hope!) - you might get same thing, too.

His name is Hans and meeting strange men with big baseball bats in dark alleys is one of his favorite pastimes. :eek:
Probably, masochists always think other people LOVE the pain. Thus, they engineer a car without a spare.

It is just business.
It sure is, until somebody gets raped and mugged because they couldn't just mount spare and leave. And BMW Assist took 3 hours to get the tow there. It only saddens me that it always has to be a lawsuit to stop people from doing completely avoidable unreasonable things (like not having engineered a space for a spare). I wish they would just think and say ... nah, that's really stupid, let's forget about it and find better way to make money.
 
#5 ·
Losing the spare tire results in $ savings to the car mfrs. The immediate saving is in the cost of the wheel and tire x number of cars produced that don't have the spare. A further saving occurs in not having to design the car chassis to accommodate a spare tire along with everything else. Can you imagine how the design of the 335i car's exhaust system would have had to change if provision had to be made for a spare tire well?

It is just business.
 
#10 ·
It also drops some weight. In the mad race to meet the ever more ludicrous government MPG standards, every bit helps.
 
#9 ·
#12 ·
Don't forget it also has increased the size of your trunk as well as saved weight and increased your gas mileage. I have a portable compressor that runs off the cigarette lighter. Virtually all "flats" are simply slow leaks so you can pump them back up and drive for quite a while. If the light comes back on then repeat the procedure until you get to someplace that can fix it.
 
#17 ·
If they had left the spare tyre well to allow for an optional spare, you'd have even more space. Ever seen a crown Vic without a spare? It's bigger than my apartment
 
#20 ·
If BMW doesn't provide the spare (obviously to save money, not the weight, whatever the propaganda department says), I can accept it. I would pay for the spare myself, I actually did. But what really disappoints is that there is no space for it. It is significant inconvenience.
Yes, it is just business. BAD business.

As for the lack of spare BMW is not alone: in our family we have Honda Fit which comes without RF and without spare. Instead they provide the inflation kit. The manual said: To save the weight, cars with automatic transmission come without the spare tire. What a BS! At least they provide a jack and the the spare tyre well.
 
#22 ·
If BMW doesn't provide the spare (obviously to save money, not the weight, whatever the propaganda department says), I can accept it. I would pay for the spare myself, I actually did. But what really disappoints is that there is no space for it. It is significant inconvenience.
Yes, it is just business. BAD business.
I wonder how much they actually save. Aren't RFT's much more expensive than standard tires? Is it not possible that they also think that run flats might provide an extra measure of safety?
 
#24 ·
A friend and I just went fly fishing in the Mammoth Mt. area of CA, a 6+ hr. drive from Los Angeles. He refused to let me drive my E90 as it didn't have a spare and the RFs have a 50 mi. endurance limit. I agreed. There are a lot of desolate road miles on this trip so we took his aunt's 1998 Buick. It has a spare. Olancha, CA on the way up: no place to get stranded.
 
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