Wednesday, May 18, 2011

DAY FIVE - Run Flat Tires

There is an ongoing debate between those who hate run flat tires and those who understand their value. Personally, my driving history has placed me in the latter category. My Corvette had run flats on it when I purchased it (as all of them do now). Unfortunately, they were the Goodyear Eagle brand, which is known for creating a hard and noisy ride. Once I changed them out for the Michelin Pilot Sport version, the ride became softer and the noise level decreased significantly.

My new 335i comes with run flat tires, as they all do. Since I opted for the ZSP Sport Package rather than the M Sport version, my car came equipped with all season tires. I felt these would be a better option for winter driving than the performance tires included in the M Sport Package, and I didn't want to deal with changing them over for snow tires when winter arrived. Also, had I gone with the M Sport package, it would have included 18" wheels. As far as I know, they don't offer all season run flat tires in the 18" wheel size.

The run flat tires have been perfect so far. In fact, if you didn't know they were run flats, you would never suspect it. The ride is smooth and quiet. The owner's manual recommends 33psi in the fronts and 41psi in the rears. I'm thinking a 5psi reduction on the rear tires wouldn't hurt anything and might soften the ride a bit. I'll let you know what happens. Luckily, I didn't pay extra for the nitrogen fill in the tires. And that's a subject for another day.

3 comments:

  1. I would be careful re: lowering the tire pressure. The edge of my tires wore readily at manufacture's recommendations & I chose to run 40psi front & back to delay the progression on the edge (front inner edge especially). I was happy at getting +28k from my RFTs (summer performance at that) but would be weary of reducing the psi. IMHO

    ReplyDelete
  2. Gary - You're probably right. I hadn't considered that wear issue. If I remember correctly from years ago, overinflation wears out the center and underinflation wears out the edges. I think that bit of info and the color code for resistors is about all I remember these days. Actually, I haven't even checked my tire pressure to see what the dealership gave me. I better do that right away.

    ReplyDelete