Hello! So last night my tire warning light activates, and I pull into a nearby service station, find a tire with pressure down to 7.5. I refill the tire with air and drive it home about 20 miles, well within the 'safe' runflat driving distance as per the manual. I made an appt for Monday morning to get a new tire properly installed.

This morning, I moved the Mini out to the street to get our other car out, and the tire was making a very rough sound. I rechecked the pressure, and it dropped down to 0.0 overnight. The runflat tire appears driveable, by this I mean it's not obviously "flat" by appearance.

My question is whether it's okay to drive 10 miles to the tire place on Monday in this condition? Or once the air pressure sits at zero for the weekend and it's making noise to drive, is it 'dead'??

It will make a big difference driving it to tire place Monday morning vs trying to coordinate a tow truck before work, but not if I'm going to kill my wheel or rim or whatever.

Thank you!!

 

MalteseFalcn: Do you have a way to pump the tire back up just prior to driving it to the tire place to ensure that you don't mess up your rim? Might be a good time to invest in a reasonable cost compressor that plugs into your cigarette lighter socket. They make really small ones that will fit behind the side panel on the right side of the boot. Got mine at PepBoys. Just a thought.

 

It would be easier to take the wheel off and take it to the service station by other means to have it repaired or replaced. Driving on the runflat is an emergency option, but the runflat will be damaged beyond any hope of repair. I have experienced this for myself. The best thing I ever did was to move to non-runflats and have a roadside assistance plan and an onboard repair kit (slime and compressor).

No air in the runflat at all will damage your car's alignment and wheel. They drive better on a "slow leak" situation than no air at all.

 

Refill with air and then go to repair or just remove wheel and take it to be repaired if you got 2nd car.

 

you should be fine driving the car, for 10miles if you don't drive over 55mph.

also
check your TPS on the wheel. MINI should warranty it,
last time this happened to me, the seal betweem the wheel and TPS was broken, so no matter how many times i put air in, it slowly leaked out.

 

Thank you all for the helpful replies!

I did go buy myself a small compressor unit, which works just fine. And it's not the TPS seal thing, cuz I spotted the little chunk of metal sticking up out of the tire, lol.

I pumped up the tire to near 30 PSI just to test out the leak, and it initially dropped some quickly, but then 'settled' at a driveable pressure after a while. I'm sure it'll slowly leak back to zero overnight, but I think I will try to pump it back up tomorrow morning and get it the 10 minutes to the tire shop.

Thanks!

 

Consult with the tire mf'r to find out if the tire is still OK to be driven on, or needs to be replaced. And good luck finding someone who is willing to repair it, if you go that route. Many tire shops fear liability and won't patch/plug them.

 

A compressor is a good idea for any car without a spare. Even better with a basic patch kit, or dynaplug, which seems less destructive, and easier to use.