Originally Posted by The G Man

All I can say is that I have been driving for 25 years and so far I have gotten 1 flat tires and no bent rims and I have own cars with runflats before. Driving in NY city with 40 profile runflats is asking for trouble. BMW might as well tack on the price of the tire and wheel insurance and schedule maintenace onto the MSRP if one is to buy the sport package and live in NY. I am currently looking at the 5 series and the 5 series' Sport Package with the 40 profile tires have the same problem. I have decided to forgo the sport package, insurance or no insurance, I just dont want the hassle. The 45 profile runflats seem to have alot less problems. What good is a run flat tire if the sidewall gets damage and the rims get crack when you hit a pothole? What if you are on a long trip? BMW doesnt even provide you with a spare tire. I am not a big fan of the runflats, I would take a conventional spare tire anyday.

Originally Posted by Reisen

Ok, so I had a chance to check out the Q last night when she got home.

First, no rash at all on the wheel. She must have gone completely up and over the curb (with that one wheel) without ever actually scraping it. Lord only knows how she managed that... She claims she was in a construction zone and another car drifted into her lane...

Anyway, what she thought was curb rash was actually rubber on the lip of the rim. It looks like the tire deflected so severely that it folded over on itself and left some transfer on the rim (easily wiped off).

The tire pressure held, but with a tennis-ball size bulge in the sidewall, the tire is no longer usable.

Next up will be to have the shop check to see if the wheel is still true when the new tire arrives from Tire Rack (Monday). Donahue, that's a good point about possibly having the rim straightened, since, amazingly, visually it's still flawless (no rash).

So we'll start with getting the tire changed and the rim checked, and then move on to alignment and suspension.

Thanks for the link to the rim on ebay. Unfortunately, we have the GoodYear Eagle LS2's, and they still have plenty of tread life (the car is only 11 months old), so I just replaced it with the same.

Originally Posted by Reisen

Got the new tire for $246 shipped from Tire Rack, and paid $16.50 to have it put on yesterday, plus another $9 for Hunter Road Force balancing. Car was out of alignment, so that was another $80 or so. That seems to be it, so far. They said the suspension looked fine, but next time it's in the dealer, I'm going to have them check it.

Originally Posted by The G Man

Now is a good time to talk to the wife about the DOs and DON'Ts of going up sidewalks at 45 MPH

Originally Posted by The G Man

Now is a good time to talk to the wife about the DOs and DON'Ts of going up sidewalks at 45 MPH

Originally Posted by Reisen

I know, right?

The craziest thing was, not 4 hours after I wrote this post, my wife called me (we had switched cars for the day while I got hers fixed, she had my bimmer), and the BMW died in the middle of traffic. I rushed out, got it started, only to have it die a block later. We limped to a garage, charged the battery, then had it die again. Either the alternator or the voltage regulator, it looks like...

This has been a bad week for our German cars!