Two owners of new 997 with wide tires suffered nails to the rear tires .Unless you check pressures you will find you are riding on flat tires and suffer permenant damage. These tire are magnets for sharp objects and the low profile makes detection by visual inspection impossible.

 

?????????? Huh? I think ude know if you had a flat tire unless you were sleeping at the wheel......

 

Interesting question. Isn't the magrin for error pretty slim? If you weren't completely alert your chances are probably very small of stopping the car in time to save the tire. They seem to get chewed up internally pretty fast.

 

Hope the rims were damaged. Tires are shot once punctured anyways. Get new ones and move on.

At highway speed, it can be hard to detect a leaking tire since some low profile side walls are very stiff and hold up real well.

 

First time I picked any type of nail, etc. up....Just got a rear tire(4kmiles) plugged on my C4S last night after picking up screw bolt......was told patch and plug safe fix for life of tire tread..........any experiences with plug/patches ? Any info would be nice............

 

There are billions of patches on tires on the highways over the past twenty years. There's no trend of accidents or fatalities caused by patches failing.

I personally must have had 15-20 properly patched tires in my driving career with no problems

If we were going Autobahn speeds of 120+ mph I'd replace the tire.

Since it's nearly impossible to do 90+ mph sustained speeds in the USA why bother replacing the tire if it gets a simple puncture and can be properly fixed with an internal patch and plug?

 

I don't know about Michelin, but the patch/plug (not patch or plug alone) is the only approved method of repairing speed rated tires. They allow for one repair per tire, if the hole is under a certain size (don't remember the size), while retaining the speed rating for the tire. You can call the tire company's customer service line, and get their recommendation for repairs.

Michael

 

Yep, this is actually happening to me right now. My left rear tire is slowly loosing air. I'm going to fix it this week. I was driving in A remote area at the time I noticed it. Tried to put some air in the tire with the little 12 volt pump. Blew a fuse first and after that used the recommended cigarette power outlet and that worked).......

You hardly notice it untill it gets below say 20 to 25 pounds of pressure. So watch for your tires before you step in.

They quoted $450 for one tire (Michelin 295/30/ZR/19). Is that about what it will cost?

 

Oddly enough I've not had a single issue with my 997 tires but my wife's 325i has had to have 2 rear tires replaced due to punctures and one patched. This is all in less then one year, since it's her car there was almost no tread wear on them at all when they were punctured. I bought the tire package on the Porsche but not the BMW, go figure....