Quote:
Originally Posted by bmw1racer
Ugh, can't say that I have a good feeling for RFTs now: TPMS activated indicating a flat and after some checking, my passenger side rear picked up a nail. After getting the tire pressure back to normal, I drove around looking for an open tire shop (most are closed on Sunday) and finally found one.
When they pulled the tire, the inner sidewall showed that there was cracked, so now the tire has to be replaced... Only after three months of ownership! 
I think if it were a non-RFT, the sidewall wouldn't have cracked and all I would've needed was a patch for the nail... Groan.  |
I am late to respond to your post, but I think the issue you raise is important so want to jump in. IMHO the sidewalls on non-run flat tires, if you had had them, would have packed it in many, many miles ahead of the RFT's, possibly in a very spectacular way.
It happened to me. I noticed low pressure in my Acura, but was in a rush to get my daughter 80 miles to an airport to catch an overseas flight. So I put some air in and set out. Twenty minutes later i watched the tread speeding down the highway ahead of me, completely separated from the sidewalls. The last 60 miles were on the compact spare.
Sidewalls give out because of the greatly exaggerated flexing resulting from running with low tire pressure. In a run-flat tire, the sidewalls are stiffened to support the vehicle and to resist sidewall flexing when pressure is low (which is why the car has to have TMPS -- otherwise you might not notice the low pressure situation until the sidewall blows out).
I think the days of running a tire with a nail in it for any real distance with low pressure and then simply plugging the hole are gone -- most of the time the tire will need to be replaced. And, as you noted, sometimes the damage only shows up on the inside, so it is important to have the tire taken off the rim for inspection instead of plugging the tire on the car.
Errowen