06530-6M

Is there anyone out there who purchased the official BMW tire air pump that plugs into your cigarette lighter to pump air into a flat tire? Mine only has pictograms on the side of the container with no real directions. I assume because it should be 'that easy' to use, but no ...

When I have it off the tire there's air. When I connect it and sit there patiently 'forever' it doesn't seem to be doing anything to the tire. The tire is completely flat down to the pavement so maybe I have to be more patient?

What has me confused is that there's a red plastic valve on the other side of the built in air pressure gauge. When I turn it to loosen it I can hear air escaping from around the gauge and it stops reading anything. Screw it back in and the pump makes more noise and the valve begins reading, although there's 'nothing' to read after at least 10 min. connected to the tire, hence the growing frustration.

One would think I should just be able to plug one end to my car, the other to the cigarette lighter, turn it on, and voila, tire slowly comes back to life, but no ...

I did a search of both E60 and the WWW and cannot find a single reference to this product, which I find surprising. I'm going back out to the garage and will check back in a few to see if there have been any responses. I could really use your help please! I would much rather find a way to make this work than to go all the way through the process of taking the tire off the car to get it to the shop. My plan is to fill it up, ensure it's not a super fast leak, and drive it to the shop nearby. If it's a fast leak I'll have to take the tire off, I realize that.

HELP?

I have attached a photo of the unit. Note: I connected it directly to the vehicle instead of connecting the secondary tube you see in the pic because it didn't seem to have any air coming through it after sitting there 'forever.' When I connect the first tube to the 2nd one's intake valve at the top of the machine there IS air coming out of that secondary one, so it doesn't seem to make a difference. I think that's a protection thing to keep you from overinflating the tire, which in this case is not going to be a problem ...

Btw, no I do not have chrome wheels on my E60! That's our X5.

ObD

page 212 print; page 214 pdf

http://www.m3post.com/goodiesforyou/e92-m3-manual.PDF

06530-6M

Thanks for the thoughtfulness there Mod ...

Did you really have to move this to where hardly anyone will see it within only minutes after I posted it? I obviously needed help in a hurry and you could have left this in the main discussion area for at least a few hours. Really, I don't appreciate this action at all. When someone obviously needs 'right now' help with something pretty darn important you should let them have access to the most read portion of the forums for at least a while and then move it if necessary.

So, does anyone out there, if you're actually reading this ..., have any experience with any brand of tire air pump that plugs into your cigarette lighter for power? Are they supposed to take a really, really long time to blow up the tire?

Any help will be very appreciated because I'm about to give up. Thank you.

06530-6M

Well, I don't know what to do then ...

Thanks for the PDF file. The directions you provided above, and my device looks 'mostly' like that one except for the secondary valve, indicate it should only take a few minutes to inflate a flat tire. In fact, it warns that you can only have the device on for 10 min. or it can overheat.

Very frustrated. I'll keep the names I'm calling this device to myself.

ObD

I have a cordless one which runs off an internal battery. It's not fast like a true motorized air compresssor. At most I've added 8 lbs and it took several minutes. It's about a pound a minute. Your leak may be too great for the compressor to overcome. Run it for 10 minutes and if the pressure gauge doesn't indicate it's filling then I think you are SOL.

06530-6M

Alright, I'm coming back to record this in case anyone else ever needs this type of assistance:

I was just about to give up and disconnect everything when I noticed that the tire valve was at the bottom of the tire. You can see what I mean in the photo. I wanted to ensure that it wasn't pinched or flattened in such a manner that air wouldn't be able to enter. I carefully backed up the X5 just a few inches to 'raise' the tire valves position and the BMW tire air pump worked flawlessly! It took less than 5 min. to go from nothing to 36 psi which I find pretty amazing.

I'm going to ensure this is not a super fast leak and then attempt to get the car to the tire shop nearby.

I still stand by my criticism of the Mod's action above, however. My company operates its own Forums as well and every site that does has a forum section that is heavily visited by nearly everyone with accompanying sections that have more specific topics. They, of course, receive a lot less traffic. However, when someone posts a "help!" type question, indicating that they're in some sort of trouble and need as much help as they can get in the smallest number of minutes, we leave them alone and move the thread later.

I'm all for moving threads to where they belong, but someone in dire need of help is a different matter. Some consideration should have been used in this case IMO. (With polite emphasis on "IMO." This is not my web site, of course.)

Again, thanks for the help above! I really appreciated it.

ObD

If you use the view new posts feature new posts always rise to the top no matter the forum. Those who have this enabled will see it. Glad everything worked out. Once I ditch the RF's I'm getting an M mobility kit myself.

06530-6M

For the record, again in case anyone ever needs this info, the red plastic valve I mentioned is to slow down how fast the air comes out. It's probably meant for something smaller, like a bike tire, in case you want a slower flow to keep it from pumping in too much air pressure. It worked like a charm once I moved the car back a little.