maninblack

Traveling into the countryside the other night, doing a good clip on a backroad, myself, wife, kids, dog and luggage....beep beep "puncture warning...reduce speed". Hmm, apparently I have a flat. Thats okay though because I'm on runflats. The car is handing fine and I am over 100k from home and only 30 to my destination so I stop, pull out the torch, have a look at the tyres, which all look okay and then continue on at the recommended 80kmh. The next morning in daylight I again look at the tyres and can't see any problem.

Unfortunately the warning system doesn't tell you which tyre is causing the problem and because you are on runflats you cannot visually see which one is the problem...good planning BMW Also when you re-initialize the system it takes about 20 or more minutes to go active so you can't do a quick re-test.

So I am 100k from a BMW dealer (or anyone who will have a 245/40/18 runflat) and have a weekend of country driving to do.

Before ringing BMW for help my wife reminds me that when her Mini was new the warning system would go off falsely all the time until they corrected the software. I remember that in my little toolkit from my old car I have an old fashioned pencil style tyre pressure gauge. I test the tyres and the pressures are all fine. The alarm was a false one. I re-initialize the system again.

So my advice if you are going to do a lot of driving in country or isolated areas, carry a pressure gauge so you can tell straight away if you have a real problem or a false alarm.

GPS

thanks maninblack. good piece of advice!

djone101

Good tip. I've taken to carrying a gauge too. My warning has gone off four times since I had the car so I suspected a slow puncture. Since the last reset though it's all been quiet and I've since covered over 600 miles.....

Any idea if this "aid" can be switched off by the dealer?

Hobart

I had two false warnings so I also purchased a tire guage. Although the two times that it was for real I was sure glad that I had runflats. Anyway, just step out of the car and check the pressure of each tire when the warning is signaled. Finally, you do not necessarily need to REPLACE a runflat. Most all of the time you just stick a plug in it and it is as good as new. I have had two punctures and the tire place just plugs it. About 15 minutes of work and only US$6 for the service here in Taiwan.

Who wants to wait for the tire changing service or get out of the car, get dirty and change it yourself.

aultimateE60

I had false alram before, I had to stop the car on freeway middle of night because I dont have RF's.

JDN

Brilliant!

converted2bmw

We've had 1 warning, which turned out to be accurate - the tyre company came to work's car park and replaced the tyre, (there was a nail in it) and since then it's been fine.