If the jack is rated at 2 tons it better be capable to lift that weight. Assuming the car weighs 2 tons total and you lift up one side completely off the ground, the load on the jack should be about 1 ton. Since you normally lift only one wheel off the ground and the other one on the same side still carries some weight the load on the jack should be even less than that. Therefore a 1.5 ton jack should be sufficient.

 

Thanks!

 

HPMan,

Don't just think about it. DO IT! You will then have a car that rides better, grips better, is quieter and has none of the horrible tramlining. i.e. It will be the car that Herr BMW / Mr. Bangle designed it to be.

Spare Wheel:
In the UK, you can go to the Dealer and buy a "kit" consisting of a wheel, tyre, jack, brace and chocks, in a plastic carrier that fits inside the wheel. This costs around ?150 GBP, which, with the way things work, usually works out around $150 USD (i.e. around half what we would pay).

Oddly, the wheel doesn't fit in the boot tray! There are two options. The first is to remove the tray altogether and rest the wheel etc. on the styrene base that protects a couple of relays. The second is to get a craft knife or the trusty Dremel and remove the lugs that the quadrant dividers slot into.

A 2 ton jack will be fine. With legendary BMW 50:50 weight distribution, you will have roughly a quarter of the weight of the car on the jack, with the other three quarters on the other wheels. Roughly anyway!

I did the cheapskate thing and got my local tyre man to source me a new wheel/tyre. I used an old Vauxhall (General Motors) jack I had in the garage that with a little modification fits perfectly into the BMW jack slots. I ususally carry enough tools for a major stripdown anyway (the product of having an old British car!). My total outlay was around ?80 GBP.

There are many good reasons for changing to non-RFT's, and only one for keeping RFT's, and that is Safety. I appreciate that it would be a boon to most people to carry on driving when they had a puncture, with no real risk of a blowout at speed, and this needs to be considered. So; there are pro's and con's to RFT's or not. I am firmly in the "Junk the Run Flats" camp! Do it - it will be like getting a new car!

Mike

 

The jury still seems to be very much out in relation to the RFT vs. non-RFT, so it's very much down to personal taste/choice.

As regards the spare, there is a BMW OEM spare tyre/jack kit that you can get. Here in the Netherlands, it is my understanding that we have to have a spare in the back, RFT or not, and my car came with the kit. It sits under the trunk liner, and certainly seems to sit there flush and comfortably. If memory serves me right, the tyre is a 135/60 R17. Pic attached.

 

Jeez what is it with all these anti run flat threads at the moment. Thanks to you lot I've just been FORCED (yes, FORCED) to change my order to 19" non RFs. I hope you are all proud of yourself. When I get a blowout and die, I hope you all feel guilty.

 

Hey there, I had run flat 19s on mine, but i got a full set and spare tyre plus all the wrench etc, not sure how much exactly it is, but on my E90, I got nothing, and was quoted around ?170 for whole set inc spare wheel and tyre, and yes this does fit both models, E60, E61, E90, E63, E64.

Heres my wheel and bits

 

I am also thinking about going non-runflat with my next tyrechange - this on UK 03/53 530d E60 (which has spare and kit under the boot floor, by the way). My question was about the pressure sensors for the pressure alert system - do they still work ok with non-runflats? Does the tyre shop need to do anything special to swap them over when the replace the tyres (given I doubt I'll be buying tyres at a BMW dealer)? Forgive the possibly stupid question, but for some reason I'm under the impression that these things are attached to the valves, or something like that, so do they have to reuse the valve or something? Do you have to do anything on the IDrive menu after the replacement, or does it work it out for itself

Only had the car 3 months, so not swapped tyres on it yet.
Thanks
Andrew

 

Your only lifting one corner of the car. I wouldnt try to lift both front or both rear. Just do one corner at a time. If you used the supplied jack you would have to do one corner at a time.

Also I amazed they would delete common roadside equipment run flat or not. That jack is great though its only 6 pumps and bam!

 

If you change rims and you have senors in the rim then you'll have too swap them out, As far as the monitoring system it will have to be reset either way once the bead of the tire is broken or once air is let out. If you just add 2 lbs of air cause you thought they were low you need to reset the system.

 

Boltoa/Andrew:

Your car doesn't have any sensors in the wheels, the TPM (Tyre Pressure Monitoring) System uses the ABS sensors on the hubs, which detects any difference in rotation between wheels. This means that if you get a flat, the TPM won't alert until the tyre has about 30% less pressure than it should have. You will have to reset the tyre pressure in the iDrive, just the same as you do each time you alter your tyre pressures. Don't forget that as soon as you reset the system, don't sit there waiting for it to do something, because you will have a long wait! The system needs to be run for a few miles to "learn" the wheel rotation. The upside to this system is that it is cheap and maintenance free. The downside is if you reset the system with one (or two, or three, or all four) tyres with the wrong pressure, the system still thinks it is correct - it only detects a change of pressure, and hence the circumference, or rolling radius, of the tyre.

Russ1974:

We are proud of ourselves, and we won't feel guilty if you get a blowout and die. This is because we know that you will have been enjoying yourself to the utmost degree, right to the last moment

If you do get a blowout and die, we will be sad though. We would miss you (and the car, of course)!!

Sorry Russ, I've got a sick sense of humour

Mike