Hi everyone, I have asked this question before. I am new here and prob. just dont know where to go to find replys. I had a 2006 BMW 325 and traded it because I hated the ride of the run-flats. I should have just changed tires, as I have read, but nobody wanted to do that. BMW ,for sure, did not want to. I have , on order, the X3. Thoughts on the tires now? I was assured by my salesman, that most problems with them have been solved. I will never NOT have a BMW again, so I will do what is needed to love the ride as much as I LOVE BMW. What should I do, if I experiance same problem? Will BMW change the tires? Ive read that other tire brands have run-flats that are better than what will come on my X3.. I just want all the options because those tires gave me a fit. I put 3 new sets on in 3 yrs. Thanks in advance!!!
I think maybe you'll just have to start by seeing what you think once you get them. Or, go pester your salesman until you get yours and test drive their X3 a few times and see what you think. I kinda doubt BMW would change out a set of tires for free unless there was a blatant, obvious problem. IF there are alternative tires, it's possible your dealer might be willing to work with you on it, since you're a new customer. It's easy to over-rate expectations of a dealer; in reality, dealer profit margins on new car sales are relatively minimal (I think member BMWCCA1 explains that in another post around here somewhere). Given that, a dealer may be motivated less than a new customer who's just bought a very expensive new vehicle might think, to do freebies on their behalf. Yeah, I know, you wouldn't _expect_ that, just sayin' it's a possibility - hopefully, any quality dealer organization wants to be making their customer base as happy as they can, within reason. IF there are other rft's for your car, you could try them, although, possibly at your own expense. Or, simply switch to a non-rft, keeping in mind the caveats of not having a spare tire or means to change it, and what that could imply. There are stories on both sides, about how rft's saved the day for folks, and how it worked out to be an inconvenience for some reason or another. There have been a few stories of folks getting held up during a road trip because of a rft flat or failure, and nobody (including dealer) having the right tire and it taking 2-3 days to get a tire in. But, there's also the inclement weather/no place to stop/bad area stories where the rft's allowed soldiering on to a better time & locale to address the flattened tire. There seems to have been incessant complaints over rft ride quality, hopefully by now the tire-makers are making improvements w/ the rft's in that area. Since the trend has been towards lower-profile tires, even with rft's, the lower-profile tires are simply more susceptible to damage or blowouts, or having a damaged rim, particularly on many of our infrastructure-failing, chuckhole-ridden, roads. Road conditions have a lot to do with where you live - obviously winter areas, particularly the ones that require ice-treatment, suffer lots of road deterioration by the end of every winter. The south doesn't get that, but the roads can get bumpy as they're beat down by the trucks, since weather conditions may never induce a need for pothole patching. You can search tirerack.com for what fits on your vehicle, and sometimes folks will write their own user reviews there, so you can use that as well as whatever comments you glean here. You can search these forums, the search command is in the 2nd lighter-blue bar from the top, while looking at any part of the forums.