As I was pulling into a parking lot last night I noticed a loud thumping sound coming from the right front, sounded like something in the tire. I checked to make sure that my TPM (older passive system) alarm hadn't gone off and pulled into a parking spot near a light post. Sure enough, there was a rather large piece of rubber being held to the tire by a pretty good size screw and you could hear the air escaping. So, thinking to myself that A) I have runflats so let's test them out and B) Maybe if the tire loses more air then the TPM alarm will go off. I pulled out the screw and the air escaping didn't get noticeable louder so the tire was going flat anyway.

After dinner I checked the tire and it there was no longer any air escaping and it looked like it has lost some air. Got in, starter her up and NO TPM ALARM.

Am I missing something here. Isn't the whole point of having a system to monitor tire pressure to actually notify you when a tire loses pressure?

Luckily we purchased the tire warranty so at least I'm not going to have to fork out the 2-3 hundred bucks to have the tire replaced. But I plan on making a nice trip to the dealer to have them look at the system.

Has anybody else experienced any similar issues?

 

Did you actually try and drive it after dinner? From my understanding, the alarm will only go off if you're actually moving as that's when it senses a difference in tire rotation.

 

Oh yeah. I drove it home, which about a 2 mile drive. I know the speed limit on the runflats is 50 MPH so I made sure to keep it below that.

 

I got my MCS in late may. Within a week I had two flats, one on each of the rear tires. I bought a new one for the left rear, about $300 by the time I got it mounted and balanced. After the second flat I took it to a local car shop who has been maintaining my BMW 325i Wagon for some three years and he was able to plug it. I've now got 8500 miles on the car and have had no tire troubles since. The tire pressure monitor has to be reset each time you add air. I drove on my first flat thinking the TPM was in error but it wasn't.
By the way, as soon as I wear the run flats out I'm going for regular tires and new wheels. And I am trying very hard to get the run flats worn out fast. They are already half gone.

 

Hmmm... I wasn't aware that I needed to reset the TPM every time I added air to the tires. Is that required with the newer direct monitoring system?

 

does direct tpm give you numbers for the pressure? I have the older kind so I am curious.

 

Your tire pressure monitor is only effective when it "knows" what is normal and what is not. I don't know what the PSI spread is. For example, if you have only 15 PSI in your tires and do a reset it will alarm only if it goes below a certain # of PSI below that. I may be wrong on this but I've experienced it. When I first noticed the TPM alarm on my flat tire I thought it was an error. I reset the monitor and it didn't alarm again until I could feel the lower pressure while driving. I hope this helps.
r56mini, I'm not sure what you're asking. If you are asking what pressures are required for your tires, look on the driver's side door jam, behind you as you are sitting in the driver's seat.

 

I had a flat as well over this weekend.. I believe it takes a bit for the sensor to go off.. I could be wrong, depending on how much tire pressure is lost but.. When I first put rims on my car, I used the stock runflats.. After getting home (about 5 miles) the sensor went off, which is when I checked for tire pressure.. The air pressure was around 32~ lbs.. Just the other day I got a nail in my tire -- I think it went off within 1/2 mile because when I got home, I could still hear air leaking from the actual nail... I'm guessing as I mentioned earlier, as more air in released the faster the sensor notices because of the difference in tire rotation vs rpm...

 

No. There was another thread that went into this. If you have the NAV, the newer TPMS will show you which tire has a problem, but no pressure numbers. Seems that it is not a very sensitive system. IIRC, the documentation says it will register if there is greater than 30% loss of pressure. So, if you set it at 36 psi., it wouldn't alarm until about 25 lbs.

It may be that the older FTM (wheel rotation based) alarms earlier. I got an alarm on mine after the car had been sitting for six weeks (hospital stay due to procedure that went wrong). My recollection is that the tire was about no more than 5 lbs. down. I suspect that BMW chose FTM as a better system, but was forced by government regs to change to TPMS.

 

I got a flat after 2 weeks and 1500 miles on my new MCS. Goodyear paid for the tire under the new car tire warranty (through Discount Tire Store). Not the extra one some people buy from the dealer, just the standard tire warranty that's included with the car.

My passive TPMS did work. That's the only reason I new it was flat. Those runflats ride like a rock filled or flat. They're getting replaced with non-runflats next week.

 

Wow, a lot of people seem to be getting flat tires with MINIs. I wonder if runflats are more prone to leaks than non-runflats. I don't see why they would be, but it would a great conspiracy theory. Perhaps it is just the forum phenomenon.

 

Mine was a nail I *think* I picked up around my friends mustang shop...go figure..maybe that's a way of saying Dont come back!

 

Mine was a nail also. Too close to the sidewall to repair.

 

I got a machine screw in my left-rear last week; no alarm either.
I plugged it and am happily motoring for now.

 

Mine was in the left rear sidewall! lol.. Only, I purchased the tire/wheel protection package and they replaced it no charge.. I was told however by the service guy that you shouldn't repair the runflat as it decreases its purpose...

 

The European Goodyear website says on it that their runflats are repairable just like any regular tire.

 

I just had the opposite happen. My TPMS (the newer version) went off because my tire was at 29.5 instead of 33.

 

Shouldn't speed or listen to loud music either...

I'll probably patch it or put on snows and throw away the RF's anyhoo.

 

Dropped the car off at the dealer this morning and they gave me a loaner, tire was ordered this morning and should be in this afternoon or tomorrow morning. The tire warranty will cover the damage so it seems to be working out OK.

 

Dealer's add-on expensive warranty or the tire manufacturer's warranty?

 

33 psi seems rather low. What wheels/tires do you have? The recommendation on my MCS with 17" wheels is 36-38 psi, depending on the load and whether you drive over 100 mph (I assume that is for the autobahn).

 

The 195/55R16's are 33psi

 

The Dealer's add-on expensive warranty
Before we picked up the car we checked out how much it would cost to replace a runflat and figured that the cost of the warranty was pretty close to what it would cost to replace two tires.

 

The dealer tried to sell me the add-on tire/wheel warranty for $750 when we bought our MCS, but I declined it. Then when I got a non-repairable puncture after only 2 weeks, I started kicking myself.

That was until I found out that the tires are covered by the manufacturer. It's pro rated, but they paid for mine completely (including installation) with 1500 miles on it.

 

I did not know that the new tires were covered by the manufacturer (I have Dunlop RFs). So it's like buying the warranty from Discount Tire more or less? I bought one there with my Jeep GC set a few years ago. I punctured one with a rock with 40k miles and they gave me a whole new set. The warranty was $100. Nice. Did you just go to any tire store and what did you show them to get yours free? I too passed on the $700 tire insurance dealer thing. You can only get like 3 total I think. Guess they don't want all 4 picking up nails when they're about to go bald.