Some time back I purchased a set of 16" x 7" Panasports. I love the wheels and went to NAM and located some used 16" run flats from another member and thought everything was fine. I have had the rims on the car for a little over a year and while I have had two episodes where my tire lost air, I did not attribute it to the rim / tire combination.

Recently another member contacted me to ask if I had special Panasports because Moss Motors indicated that Panasports and run flats don't mix. This may explain why on two separate occasions my warning light came on and one of my tires went flat. When I took the tire to a shop, they could find no evidence of a puncture and attribute the defation to a faulty valve stem.

I bought the wheels from Dave Turner Motorsport. Turner is not a MINI expert and as a racing supplier probably does not have any reason to concern himself with run flat tires. So I don't feel misled here, just ignorant. I just need to know if I am cheating death every time I ride on this combination of rim and tire?

Can anyone tell me what the issue is between the Panasports and run flats and if periodic and otherwise unexplained deflation is one of the symptoms. If so, anyone want to buy eight low mileage 16" run-flats? Any recommendations for a good non-run flat for sporty street use with an emphasis on reasonably good tread life?

Kelly Duke / REDWORF

 

Wheels made for runflats have extra ridges inside on each side of the rim for support of the BACK side of the tire bead (that combined with the super stiff sidewall is what makes them so hard to dismount). The idea is for the bead not to come loose from the edge of the wheel when the tire looses air. Without the ridge to hold the bead next to the wheel edge, when air is lost the sidewall moves to the center of the wheel and the side wall collapses. My understanding is that you have lost the runflat capability by running them on non runflat wheels. This does not explain the air loss, but this is a combination that sounds if not unsafe, at least a little suspect . . .

Someone will have a link to a cross-section of a runflat wheel, I'll bet.

 

Using runflats kind of defeats the purpose of going with light wheels anyway.