Car sat in an airport parking lot for a week, then showed a low tire pressure warning when we got in late Saturday night. I inspected the tire and it seemed okay, so I assumed it was just low due to the 35 degree weather. There was a slight rumble as I started to drive highway speeds, but again, I just figured it was a flat spot from sitting and the cold rubber. I wasn't 100% convinced, so I didn't go faster than 60 on the way home. About 3/4 of the way there, there was a bang and a minor loss of stability - it was clear the tire had blown. We were on the side of a highway, it was nearing midnight, we had our kid in the back, and our car was loaded with our luggage. I went through all the options (read: hassle) to get home and eventually decided to drive on the run flat. We were ~6 miles from home, so I figured the worst that could happen is I ruin a wheel and/or have to abandon the car closer to home.
I've never driven any distance on a run flat and I have to say, I am a believer. It was obvious we didn't have four good tires, but I drove 20-30 mph home with zero problems. It doesn't give you the same distance as a full size spare would, however that doesn't really matter that much for us since 95% of our driving is in a five mile radius. I will likely always have run flats on our family hauler for this very reason - I just didn't want to fathom calling for help at the hour and with the logistics we were dealing with. The car itself also handled really well with a problem tire. I can't say how much was tire and how much was car, but a rear tire blowout at highway speeds has the potential for disaster. The car was 100% controllable with no significant loss of input, feel, or handling. I'm guessing a lot of it is tire, although I suspect xDrive has something to do with it.
I had the car towed from our house to a tire shop nearby this morning (thanks free BMW roadside assistance!) for inspection. They said the inside shoulder of the tire was down to cord, which was surprising given the outside shoulder had enough tread. The car will sit pretty low when it's fully loaded, so I suspect it was part alignment and part our use over the last two years. The treadwear on the current tires is 500 and the car has like 49k miles on it, so the failure isn't super surprising if they're the original tires. I'm pretty sure they are, so I'm replacing all four with the same tire - Pirelli all-season run flats. The unexpected expense sucks, but I should have seen it coming given the mileage. The good news is we'll be ready for some road trips this summer and these tires should last us for the remainder of our ownership -- we've done ~9k miles in 22 months, so that's like 10 years.
All in all, it was a potentially terrible situation that ended up not being that problematic. I'm kinda shocked.
![[Image: nCEvKO4.jpg]](https://i.imgur.com/nCEvKO4.jpg)
I've never driven any distance on a run flat and I have to say, I am a believer. It was obvious we didn't have four good tires, but I drove 20-30 mph home with zero problems. It doesn't give you the same distance as a full size spare would, however that doesn't really matter that much for us since 95% of our driving is in a five mile radius. I will likely always have run flats on our family hauler for this very reason - I just didn't want to fathom calling for help at the hour and with the logistics we were dealing with. The car itself also handled really well with a problem tire. I can't say how much was tire and how much was car, but a rear tire blowout at highway speeds has the potential for disaster. The car was 100% controllable with no significant loss of input, feel, or handling. I'm guessing a lot of it is tire, although I suspect xDrive has something to do with it.
I had the car towed from our house to a tire shop nearby this morning (thanks free BMW roadside assistance!) for inspection. They said the inside shoulder of the tire was down to cord, which was surprising given the outside shoulder had enough tread. The car will sit pretty low when it's fully loaded, so I suspect it was part alignment and part our use over the last two years. The treadwear on the current tires is 500 and the car has like 49k miles on it, so the failure isn't super surprising if they're the original tires. I'm pretty sure they are, so I'm replacing all four with the same tire - Pirelli all-season run flats. The unexpected expense sucks, but I should have seen it coming given the mileage. The good news is we'll be ready for some road trips this summer and these tires should last us for the remainder of our ownership -- we've done ~9k miles in 22 months, so that's like 10 years.
All in all, it was a potentially terrible situation that ended up not being that problematic. I'm kinda shocked.
'76 911S | '14 328xi | '17 GTI | In memoriam: '08 848, '85 944
"Here, at last, is the cure for texting while driving. The millions of deaths which occur every year due to the iPhone’s ability to stream the Kim K/Ray-J video in 4G could all be avoided, every last one of them, if the government issued everyone a Seventies 911 and made sure they always left the house five minutes later than they’d wanted to. It would help if it could be made to rain as well. Full attention on the road. Guaranteed." -Jack Baruth
"Here, at last, is the cure for texting while driving. The millions of deaths which occur every year due to the iPhone’s ability to stream the Kim K/Ray-J video in 4G could all be avoided, every last one of them, if the government issued everyone a Seventies 911 and made sure they always left the house five minutes later than they’d wanted to. It would help if it could be made to rain as well. Full attention on the road. Guaranteed." -Jack Baruth