My wife has an 06 MCS w/ sport package and one of the run-flats has a bulge on the sidewall, I'm assuming from pot holes and what nots. I don't want to replace all the tires with non-crappy non-run-flats quite yet since they still have plenty of tread. For now I'd like to just replace the damaged one and run the rest down to the wear limiters, then replace all with non-run-flats.

However, I know how temperamental the tire pressure warning system is even when your tires are off by a few PSI, so I'm worried replacing a single tire with a different amount of tread wear will produce issues with the warning light coming on all the time.

Can I do it?

 

For reasons I won't go into again, I ended up with 3 tires w/ 11k and one new one (right front) and never noticed a thing until the three old ones needed replacement - no alarms either. I think you'll be fine.

Edit: The replacement tire was identical to the originals.

 

if you have limited slip, be sure the new tire goes on the rear axle. as for the TPMS, I think 2-3psi is the delta it needs to go off.

 

I'd recommend replacing tires in pairs unless you are buying one tire that is the same make and model/tread. I say this because I had one tire replaced on the rear which was fine...until it got rotated to the front. Now, the car feels like it's out of alignment and behaves oddly. I will never do that again.

Greg

 

I'm in the same boat. I just bought my MCS 06. The tires look brand new, but one has/had a sidewall bulge.

dichman, if your in Colorado I'll buy one of your good used ones, then you can buy two new together. :D

 

I like the way JohnJohn thinks! Otherwise, you could buy two regular replacements for the price of one run flat ..... easily.

 

Ditto

 

I have an '04, and I had already replaced my tires for non-runflats. I ran into the same problem recently, had a bubble in one sidewall, so I had to get one new tire. There was enough of a difference in treadwear that with correct pressures the warning light came on during a long highway drive. That's what the reset button is for...I checked my pressures, they were fine, so I reset it. Done. Now it's calibrated to the new setup, should it deviate the light will go on again I suppose. But the light will not "go on all the time", just if the pressures deviate enough.

 

If you lived near me, I cold make you a deal on a pretty good run flat I'm not using. Probably the same type you have. Came stock on the car.

 

Pirelli run flats came on the vehicle, new? 2006 Sport Package MCS? If so I am heading to the dealer to see if the customer bought a road hazard warranty. My vehicle had 25,000 miles on it when I bought it. The tires look brand new. Previous owner probably had them replaced at the dealer.

My vehicle came out of Nevada. Discount Tire is extra huge there. I thought about driving down to my local store and asking them to look up the previous owner or VIN and see if my tires had road hazzards on them.

 

@JohnJohn: Thanks for the offer, but I'm in Cali. Also not sure just how "good" my existing tires are as they have about 30K, but still seem to have a fair amount of tread according to the wear limiters. BTW, how many miles should I expect to get on these? Maybe it's time to just replace all of them if I'm only going to get another 10K out of them.

Well thanks for everyone's input, it's reassuring to know that others have replaced individual tires w/out issues. That's also interesting that the TPMS recalibrates itself when you hit the reset button. I just assumed that if it detected any of the wheels rotating at different rates it would go off. Smart that it calibrates itself. I guess they probably had to have it do that w/ the various factors that affect the rotation rate, including load and what not.

In closing I'd just like to say that I think the Dunlop SP 9000 DSST run-flats that came from the factory are pretty crappy. They initially seemed to grip pretty well in the first 0-15K. Then I didn't drive the car for a while as it is used as my wife's commuter. Recently I've started driving it more and now have a new job with a route that affords me a small amount of spirited driving in the morning. The DSC (and traction control, or are those one-in-the-same?) constantly goes off. Anymore than 1/3 throttle off the line and it's going off. Trying to accelerate out of turn - going off. It sure takes the wind out of your sails when you're hauling *** through a turn and you want to accelerate hard on the exit and the DSC light is blinking and cutting the throttle on you. I suppose I could turn it off, but I guess it's coming on for a reason at this point...crappy tires?

Anyhow, I plan on inheriting the car from my wife in the next year or two when the baby comes , so I'd rather not "waste" a set of high performance low-mileage tires on my wife since she doesn't drive the car like I do.

Thanks!

 

Sent you a PM dw. The Dunlops came standard on my JCW. Same thing as you need I think.

 

As someone else stated, the tire pressure, not really what it is, on the first gens works off the ABS system and it measures wheel rotation speed, not air pressure. So if one tire losses air pressure, it gets smaller, spins faster, and the system then send a warning. That said, you could put four different size tire/wheel combos, reset the system, and it will not react until one of those tires change. Not a good idea, but you could do it.

Mark

 

many good tire sellers will "shave" a new tire, to have it match the wear on your existing ones. this is important if used in the front to reduce stress on the drivetrain. i would go that route if i were you...

 

the OP is from SJ CA. If he goes and buys one or two new rsc's or conventionals from a local tire retailer, they go on the rear because CA state law requires retailers to install 1 or 2 new tires only on the non-drive (rear) wheels of a FWD car--never on the front. sounds goofy yeah but it makes sense, for most of the applied braking force on a FWD car initially goes to the rear wheels.

Of course this is moot if OP just did the wise thing and dumped his crappy waaaaay over$$ rsc's (I agree) and got 4 new conventional a/s performance tires. That could count as yr first "mod."

 

I had a piece of metal in the sidewall of one of my run-flats at about 7,500 miles. The Goodyear dealer actually replaced the tire free of charge even though I didn't have any hazard insurance (needless to say they have a customer for life). When I asked the question they told me I was OK as long as I kept them rotated as the wear was even to begin with. At 12,000 miles I'm doing fine. Hope this helps.

 

I'm constantly amazed at the lack of information about this (and dealers won't tell you!).

Since you have an '06, I'll assume these are the tires that came with the car. The Dunlops and Goodyears are servicable at any Goodyear tire shop (they own Dunlop). I'm not sure about the Pirellis, but look around.

Car manufacturers warranty the cars, tire manufacturers warranty the tires. A bulge is a manufacturing defect (they're not supposed to be like that). Just take your MINI in to the tire dealer and they will replace it free (minus pro-rating the use you already have out of the tire). Any tire company will do this for any OEM tire on any car!

We got a screw in our Dunlop 9000 runflat when it was almost new. The Goodyear dealer patched it (depends on where the hole is--they can't always be patched) and our MINI was back on the road in a couple of hours.

If you are not the original owner of the car, the warranty may not apply to you (though "don't ask, don't tell" would probably work).

Good luck. It would be great if every MINI owner who reads this would pass the information along to all other MINI owners. Dont' bother telling the service writer at the MINI dealer though, they'll just continue behaving as if they don't know.

 

Thanks for the advice. I believe my Pirellis RFs are the second set of tires on this car. According to the service records the previous owner did all her service at Desert Mini in Nevada. That dealership is owned by AutoNation. It's my experience with AutoNation that any tire, sold at the dealerships comes with a road hazard warranty.

It's not a far leap for me to think the customer may have purchased the tires at the dealer...thus getting the road hazard warranty. Now I just need to find the time to call the dealer and ask, maybe I should do that instead fo replying..huh?

My experience in the past with a bulge is that it's written of to the driver hitting a curb. Why would this be covered under a manufacturers warranty?

 

Gromit hooked me up with a set of 2 hardly used Dunlop run-flats for a nice price, so I had those mounted at Wheel Works in San Jose (off of Saratoga) yesterday. I had them mounted on the rear (where the bad one was) and asked them to rotate those to the front. Of course they didn't listen to me as another poster pointed out it is CA state law to put new tires on the rear. I raised a stink and after having me sign a work order commenting that I was going against their recommendation, they did it.

I wanted to keep one of the rear run-flats as a spare as they looked to still have 5-10K on them incase we pot-holed another one. Unfortunately Wheel Works punched a huge gash through the side wall and tried to blame the worn corners of the tires. Interestingly enough the gash was towards the outter edge of the sidewall (nearest the tread). It's been a while since I used a tire machine (15+ years), but if I remember correctly the shovel-thing (not sure what this is called) is supposed to push the bead off close to the rim, not the outter edge. Sounds to me like they just didn't have the shovel adjusted correctly and tried to break the bead from the outter edge.

Funny thing is before they showed me the gash , they showed me this tiny little nail that was sticking out of the tread explaining that it couldn't be patched or plugged since it was near the sidewall. I felt the inside of the tire and it had not gone through, then I simply pulled it out with my fingers! I told them it was fine and I would take the tire home anyway. Then they flipped the tire around and said, "Oh yeah, this happened to your tire while we were unmounting it." I have a feeling they might have just hammered that stupid little nail into the tire to try and cover their asses on the gash they put into the sidewall.

Anyhow, I told them they were crazy for blaming the tire wear. Considering the tire was close to gone anyways, I just let the issue go. I'm assuming if I had gotten them to replace it they probably would have pro-rated it anyway, which probably would have been $200+ considering the wear.

For those in San Jose, I probably wouldn't recommend this Wheel Works location. The sales guy I spoke to was actually great and understood exactly where I wanted the tires the first time I explained it. However, based on tearing the sh*t out of my good spare I'd have to say the technicians (at least this one) leave something to be desired.