Has anyone been having problems keep air in the 2 front wheels. I am runing s-lite rims with Pirelli Eufori. I keep having flat tires with nothing wrong with the tires. This has been ongoing since buying the car.

I have put 2 new tires on the right front side of my car in 15k miles. they keep wearing out early because they keep running low. this will be the 3 tire on the left side.


Local Mini dealer put a new tire on and keep it for a few days. when they had it the tire lost 8 pounds of air. They says that they can not do anything but Heat seal the tires. The heat sealing has been working but i notice after 3 months it was about 14 pounds off.

I started with one wheel and now the other front tire is doing it. I found that the left side was low. So I filled it up with air. Then a couple of days later the tire went completely flat on the freeway. Luckly I was in traffic at the time. I made it work got someone to fill my tire with air again in the morning. I went to work and at the end of the day still had a full tire. so i headed home, about 4 mile into driving home the tire went completely flat again. I went straight over to the dealership and now it stays there.

The dealer tells me that because I am at the wear line, I need to change the tires because that might be the reason for the flat tire. I do not understand that answer.

I do not want to pay another $300+ per tire just to find out that the tire is not the problem and I stuck with tires that I do not want. I want to change out the tires and move away from run flats. But I am worried if I change the front tires my flat tires are going to be problem again. Then I will be stuck on the road and cannot get to somewhere safe.

I think it has to do with a defect in the rim. But Mini says it is not. I have changed tires way to many times and spending way too much money to be worring about have flats all time.

Can someone give me some advice.

 

The best way to track down a problem leak is to get a big tub and fill it with water. Next, take the wheel(s) and pump about 50-55psi in them and place them in said tub. Watch the water and you can track down your leak. It may not end being the tires at all. Could be leaking valve stem, could be a lot of dirt on the lip causing a bad seal, could be a wheel defect. I've had to fix plenty of flats so I know. Good luck and keep us informed.

 

From consulting several shops in town I respect, they are all of the consensus that run-flats, for whatever reason, tend to leak air. Before switching to my current Falkens, I had run both the Pirelli and Dunlop runflats. BOTH would leak air over time, to the point where I had the warning light pop up. Never was it punctured.

Just seems to be a problem with runflats, or the runflat/Mini-rim combo. I never tested runflats on a non-OEM rim, as I swapped out to new rims & tires for the same price as a new set of runflats would have cost me.

Your leakage, if its that much in as few days, is excessive though. My warning light was coming on after a month or so...eh.

- Matt

 

Thanks Matt... Yeah that was my problem it would take about a month before it started to leak. But when it started it would not stop.

I am going to be putting new tires (non-Runflat) on the rims in the next couple of days so we will see if that fixes the problem.

 

could be a bad scratch on the inside of the rim causing the bead to
not sit air tight, or im suspecting the valve stem as well.

 

Valve stem, bead or maybe a porous wheel.

 

before I ditched my runflats, I put air in my tires at least twice a week. No runflats, no air leaks. I remember several threads that addressed this issue, I recommend a search if you need more support that you are not crazy

 

I've had three Pirelli Eufori tires go flat on me. Two without any visible sign of a puncture. I just bought two Kuhmo runflats. I'm hoping I'll have better luck with them.

I never had any issues with the Dunlops that came with the car.

Alan