I live in SoCal, not a lot of rain but when it does rain the roads get ugly. Not really ever going to be in the snow. Have 19,000 on the Goodyear runflats now, need to replace soon. Looking for better wear than 20,000 miles, or is that a pipe dream?

Here is the twist, this is my daughter's car, she is 18 and not someone I would want stuck on the side of the road. She is capable of calling AAA and even using slime and an air pump. She does not drive it hard; at least I don't think she does...

Do I stick with the runflats, if so which ones? Is it an issue to put non-runflats on the current wheels? If it were your wife or daughter would you put non-rft on, throw the air compressor and some slime in her boot and make sure she has her AAA card? She rarely drives more than 100 miles from home and not into the sticks.

I have seen a lot about non-rft on the board here and there are differing thoughts on what tires to use but it often comes down to price, driving conditions, noise and mileage- both gas and length of use.

Having said all this, what would you recommend?

Thank you in advance for the help.

 

Runflats serve their purpose quite well at the expense of some disadvantages such as cost, ride comfort, noise, and performance. Even though I switched to non-runflats, I would say in your case stick with runflats.

From the mileage standpoint you probably are not going to improve it much with non-runflats. You can obtain runflats with a higher UTQG rating to improve mileage (wear) but you will sacriface handling. Depending on which runflats you currently have on your car, they could have a UTQG as low as 180 which would explain the wear.

The main issue will come down to cost verse trouble free travel. I would not want my daughter trying to seal a tire and pump it up on the side of the road especially at night. However, if you feel comfortable with AAA responding quickly in your area maybe a flat tire is just a little delay.

Non runflats can be installed on stock Mini wheels.

Take a look at tirerack.com to compare various runflat tires to what you currently have installed. Look at the cost and UTQG rating. If you are more interested in better tire life look for a higher UTQG number. In therory a 320 rated tire will last almost twice as long as a 180. In many cases the price will not be much different but the performance will be different.

 

I'm running runflat Dunlop SP Sport 5000s on my 05 MCS and need to replace them. This is the second pair of these tires I've had on the car. The handling is terrific. The treadwear rating on these is 280, but I can't even get 20K miles out of them and I'm not a wild driver.

I, too, would like a few more miles off the tires and would be willing to sacrifice a little less stickiness. Also the Dunlops are useless in snow. Maybe that's just the Mini, but I live in Reno and snow season approaches.

Anyone have suggestions?

 

I get about 16,000 miles out of 280 rated tires on my MCS.
About the same miles for runflats rated at 280 and non-runflats rated at 280.
I switched to non-runflats due to the cost and performance difference.

 

I've never given this advice before, but in this case I would stay with the runflats. If you upgrade to non-runflats, your daughter may be very tempted to take those twisties at higher and higher speeds.

 

Thank you everyone for the information and for you input on what I should do. If I cannot get substantially better life on the non-runflats I will likely stick with the runflats for her benefit. Sounds like the Dunlops have some fans, anyone feel good about any other runflats?

 

Runflats are an insurance policy to mitigate the chance that you may get a flat tire. However, there are a number of disadvantages with runflats besides cost and selection of tires with decent tire wear.

From personal experience, I have found 1) the risk of losing air in a tire is a lot greater with runflat tires than any non-runflat tire that I have ever had in my 35 years of driving. 2) I have had very very few flat tire situations with my regular tires. I can count them on one hand in 35 years of driving, but had 4 flat tire situations with my runflats in the two years I had them on my MINI.

The last flat tire situation I had with my runflats left my car undriveable and had to be towed to a tire dealer that did service runflat tires....a lot further than what AAA would normally tow for "free". Only to find the runflat tire needed to be replaced and said tire dealer did not have any. The cost to replace all 4 tires with non runflats was less than the cost of replacing that one runflat tire of which the one runflat tire needed to be ordered in.

So you need to weigh the risk and the cost of mitigating that risk. You might find there are other options that are more practical and less expensive.

 

Beken, much appreciated point of view, thank you.