sblyth said:
Just had the same with one of my Pirelli's.
Checked with dealer and independent and they both said official line is you cannot repair these tyres. I have good rappor with my Salesman and he has confirmed they know 2 people who have had them repaired but the start to leak soon afterwards.
I actually ended up having 2 nails in the one tyre so got a new one. £157 full fitted away from Mini dealer. Think you may struggle to find it cheaper once fitted.
Are you sure these Run flats are ok to repair ???
It is always 'the official line' that nothing can be repaired these days, due to the fact that if you repair something for somebody, then the repair lets you down, you open yourself up to acqusations that you have somehow bodged the job. In fact, it is tyre manufacturers recomendations that tyres are always replaced not repaired, when there is a puncture. Thats all tyres, not just runflats.
If the repair is in the normal tread area of the tyre (the contact zone), then the repair is straightforward. The only difference between a runflat and a non runflat is in the sidewalls of the tyre, so repairs to the tread area are the same. No tyre with danage to the sidewall should be repaired, runflat or not.
Don't let anyone tell you that repairing a runflat is any different from repairing any other tyre. Its just an excuse. Put it this way. It takes around 20 minutes to repair a tyre with a simple straight forward puncture. For which they can charge you no more than around £10. Economically, it doesn't make any sense for a garage or even a tyre specialist to do a repair for you, when they can persuade you to handover £120-160 for a new tyre fitted in less time than it takes to actually repair a puncture. So they may as well tell you its 'not recommended'. Not Recommended in this sense means absolutly nothing. It means they don't want you to pay for a repiar, nothing else. It isn't dangerous, it isn't impossible, its just uneconmic for the garage.
Heres the real gotcha though. Say you get a punture in the front tyre, on a set that has 50% life left. You going to want a new tyre on the front left of your car, and a half worn one on the front right? No. You are going to want tyres with equal amount of grip. So they sell you two tyres instead. For the cost of a repair.
I have had runflats repaired, even in the early days of Mini's. Then gone on to put another 20,000 miles on the tyres.
Everytime they tell you they don't repair runflats because its not recommended, rememeber this: They make profit from selling you NEW tyres, they make an operating loss from puncture repairs. It is faster to strip off an old tyre and replace it with a new one than it is to take an old one off, repair it, and replace it. No repair to anything in this life is
recommended when they can sell you a new one instead.
