[jensputzier]

Originally Posted by LuvMyE92

I just cannot stand the BMW philosophy of run flats and no spare.

I fully second that. Even worse is the explanation that they do it to lower fuel consumption. The only thing is that they lower the costs of a new car by whatever the full spare would have cost.

I have never thought about that until I got stranded with a damaged tire in England last year with my Audi Q7 and only a tire repair kit. 500 miles from home and no replacement tire to buy. Plus a car full of tired family and stuff after a two week holiday. It took one day to get the tire repaired by a shop and if that wouldn't have been possible they would have to fly in a new tire from Germany.

Audi was extremely helpful but if I had a replacement tire, I would have been able to change that within an hour and save the last day off for the planned activities instead.

So never a family car again without at least an emergency spare and tools.

[ceb]

A car, tire and wheel cannot defy the laws of physics.

The fact is that a skinny sidewall will damage more easily than a taller one. It will also pass on more of a shock to the wheel and suspension.

Quite simply, a heavy car, skinny sidewall and potholes don't make for a good combination. This is not BMW's fault.

[22andcounting]

I feel your frustration! The roads here in the UK are appauling, and especially so in my local city. I gave up on m-sport and wheels bigger than 18" a few years ago when the roads got so bad, its a real shame as an m-sport on large rims are by far the best looking versions. I was recently in NYC and man the roads are bad, I cannot imagine running 19"'s or 20"s on those roads.

[DuneMan]

Originally Posted by schen

ahhh.. good to know 35psi works for you.
Mine 19" GY RFTs come with 38 psi for all four when they leaves dealer's door.
I am going to lower the the pressure to 32psi per the manual recommendation.

But be careful about one point.

I just swapped my RFTs with normal Potenza's, and when we took off my GY RFTs we found that the sidewalls of all four tires were badly scarred and punctured from the inside. The Bridgestone Engineer said it's probably due driving on low pressure. He said I should be running on 40 psi because of the heavy weight of the car. otherwise, there would be too much weight on the sidewalls.

Now I'm driving with 40 psi on my new bridgestone potenza's. Drives like a dream.