[anantc93]

Hi everyone! Firstly, THANK YOU GTO for letting me a member of this prestigious holy grail of all things on wheels! I have spent hours and hours reading reviews on BHP forums, but more on that in the introduction thread I'll make on the weekend.

For now, I'll get straight to the point. I am in a living nightmare with my new 320d Sport Shadow that I purchased on 17th July, 2018. I had read enough reviews here to understand the lower durability of runflats but I took a conscious decision to go for it anyway, hoping that I would handle it carefully enough, which I think I did. BUT, in less than 4 months and less than 5k kms on the odo, I have had to replace 5 runflats. YES, 5! That means I had to replace a new tyre replaced at 2000kms again!! All with the same problem - bulges and tears in the sidewall. A couple of these developed while the car was just parked for a prolonged period of 10 days. And BMW (Bird Automotive, Gurgaon) has done the same thing every time - call Goodyear for a show, they say it is because of external impact and close the case, and BMW asks me to replace them under Secure Advance.

Timeline of Events -

1. Took delivery on July 17, 2018
2. On August 8, a friend pointed out a tear in the front left tyre's sidewall while it was parked at a hotel and I am taken by surprise




Coincidentally, Bird Automotive's second showroom was right next to the hotel and I call someone from there to take a look. He said this happens due to low pressure + external impact. This was my first experience with runflats (first time purchasing a car worth more than 10 lacs, I used to drive a Polo before this) and I assumed it must have been my fault, so I didn't really create any fuss. Under Secure Advance, I was charged Rs. 2300 for replacing the tyre since it had done less than 2000kms. Settled.

3. On September 22, my father noticed bulges on the left tyres, front as well as rear. Note that the front tyre has already been replaced once.

Front



Rear



Completely aghast, I post to BMW India's facebook page and send a long complaint email (attached below) to BMW India, Vikram Pawah, and Bird Automotive.

They quickly pick up the car, get Goodyear's surveyor and send me a note (attached below) from Goodyear that this happened due to external impact and is not a manufacturing defect. Of course. On requesting pictures of the so called damage due to impact, they sent me pictures with chalk marks depicting nothing (at least I can't see anything).





I did not get the tyres replaced under Secure Advance, hoping that I would be able to shout and scream and get it heard. Did not really work and incident is forgotten.

4. On November 2, I was taking my car to 3M for dry cleaning internally because I had to take it to show off to my family in Bijnore, UP (~200 kms from Gurgaon). It's just 1.5 kms from my house and the road is plain and simple. Surprisingly, mid-way, the front right tyre suddenly goes flat!! WHAT? It did not even have a bulge or anything, just simply got a sidewall tear at 20kmph out of nowhere.



I requested 3M guys to give it a shot to repair because I really had to take it to Bijnore the next day. They tried, charged me Rs. 700 but weren't able to accomplish anything with it (they did say it will work for thousands of kms once it dries up lol). The trip is canceled. I took out the donut for the first time and put it in so that I could at least drive it to the workshop. The car remains parked for till November 12, except for a small 3-4 kms long errand run on Diwali.

5. On November 12, I was taking it for the third time to the workshop and wanted to make sure the pressures were correct before I reached (else they simply blame everything on my inability in maintaining the correct pressure. Isn't the Tyre Pressure Monitor supposed to take care of this? They seriously want me to get pressure checked EVERY WEEEK else these bulges and cuts are expected behaviour!). Anyhow, I'm getting the pressure checked and the puncture guy points out how the tyres are in such a bad shape. He said it when looking at the rear right tyre. And that's the nail in the coffin, the final 4th tyre also has a cut. This developed while the car was just parked for 10 days. And further, the front left tyre which used to have one bulge, now had two. I was in a hurry on this day because my dad had already reached Bird Auto, so I forgot to take pictures of these two and now the car is at the workshop so I don't have photos with me at the moment. I have asked them to email me pictures.

6. We had a very thorough discussion with the people at Bird. They assure us they will help in a resolution. We suggested putting Bridgestone runflats (I've never seen Goodyears in a BMW, perhaps their runflats are sub-par?) and they said let's wait for the report, till tomorrow (that's November 13). Here's when the most interesting thing happens. There's a black sport shadow 320d parked at the showroom. Sixth sense made me feel like checking out its tyres. And voila! 3 of the 4 tyres had bulges while 1 had a cut. Checked out the details on VAAHAN service and found out it was registered on 1st August 2018. I could not find the owner there but the BMW guys told me they had not come for the tyre issue - which could very well be true because who checks the tyre condition on a 3 month old car? What it made me sure of was that the runflats in the Sport Shadow 320d are absolutely pathetic. Either the batch/lot of these tyres was bad, or the car can't handle 18 inch tyres because of the profile getting even thinner. We show the same thing to everyone that we were dealing with at Bird - sales guy, after-sales guy, and their after-sales head. A sample of 9 sour tyres out of 9 seen should be enough to convince BMW/Goodyear that they need to check what is wrong, isn't it? Apparently not. Yesterday they sent me the exact same note from Goodyear (attached below) and asked about my Secure Advance/Insurance details because Goodyear won't accept it as a defect.

I am seriously out of wits on what to do. I am sitting with a car with all 4 tyres in a non drive-able condition. Like last time I have again emailed Vikram Pawah and I got a call a couple of hours ago from BMW India and the guy actually remembered this happened a couple of months ago as well. He said he would engage with Bird and then update me, but I don't expect anything to happen.

[pavi]

In one of the images I could see 1517 marked on one of the tires ie 15th week of 2017. So when you purchased the car, the tire is already 1 year old. I could read 1517, 0418 etc. on the tires, surprised to see such variations in OE tire manufacturing dates. What is the manufacturing date of your car?

[anantc93]

Originally Posted by pavi

In one of the images I could see 1517 marked on one of the tires ie 15th week of 2017. So when you purchased the car, the tire is already 1 year old. I could read 1517, 0418 etc. on the tires, surprised to see such variations in OE tire manufacturing dates. What is the manufacturing date of your car?

I checked on https://decoder.bvzine.com/ and it showed only one date, not sure if its production date or something else --

Prod Date 
2017-11-21

Also, for reference, batch number of tyres -


Edit - I was just reading the upsizing tyres thread and found out that tyres should never be older than a year, usually anything more than 6 months is bad ALL of those tyres are way off the line, that way. Should I send another email to BMW asking why the car has tyres which are older than a year at time of purchasing?

[Turbanator]

Originally Posted by anantc93

I did not get the tyres replaced under Secure Advance, hoping that I would be able to shout and scream and get it heard. Did not really work and incident is forgotten.

Feeling bad for you but it does appear that you have indeed hit something at a high speed. Not uncommon for these cars. There is no reason for not claiming insurance under secure advance as its complimentary for the First Year (paid by BMW for tyres/ alloys) and does not affect No-Claim bonus of your regular policy. If you want to continue with this next year not only you have to pay but the choice of insurance providers is limited. So best is to claim all 4 tyres under insurance and keep the tyres that you have bought with you for future. Hope you have the original old tyres as they will match the numbers.

Now coming to your observations on another Car, I can assume it went through something similar. Roads here in Gurgaon are really bad. You will need to quickly learn to watch out for such potholes which will be Ok even for an old Maruti 800 but will damage your Beemer. Chances of having a defective Tyre are very less and having 4 similar defects very little.

Here's an old thread, you can see my post from 2011. Though I have heard things have improved now but practically, I lost one on mine X5 about 6 months back. The pressure was correct and speed moderate.

https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/techn...ml#post2522505 (Run Flats could go Flat)

So perhaps you will have to take a look at regular tyres or change to a little higher profile. There are members using 3 series and they can advise you with their experience. Sad that you have to start your journey with BMW on a disappointing note. And a warm welcome here.

[deepjaju]

Really sorry to hear about your bad experience in owning a luxury brand. One option that springs to mind is all the tyres are either defective from a single batch (which seems highly unlikely) and also almost three tyres of yours are manufactured at different dates so that automatically negates manufacturing defect.
Or I think it could be as simple as going through a very bad patch of road and that in turn ruined your tyres. Once the impact has been done on runflats its only a matter of time they start to break away (like in your case).
Please don't feel I'm blaming you for the cause, its just the road conditions in India are really pathetic and cars like these need a lot more care & attention (for our own sake). But I still urge you to take up the matter with BMW as this is a one-off situation and kindly hope BMW helps you in replacing all the tyres.

[androdev]

Originally Posted by anantc93

I checked on https://decoder.bvzine.com/ and it showed only one date, not sure if its production date or something else --

Prod Date 
2017-11-21

Also, for reference, batch number of tyres -
Attachment 1818860

Edit - I was just reading the upsizing tyres thread and found out that tyres should never be older than a year, usually anything more than 6 months is bad ALL of those tyres are way off the line, that way. Should I send another email to BMW asking why the car has tyres which are older than a year at time of purchasing?

When something like this happens, I first look at the plant where the tires are made. The first two digits of the DOT code (NE) refers to the plant code where these tyres are made.

GUMMIWERKE FUIDA G.M.B.H. NE FULDA GERMANY

A bit of googling suggests that Goodyear merged with Dunlop and owns the brands Dunlop, Goodyear, Fulda, Falken and Kelly. Fulda is generally considered a budget brand and not in the same league as Goodyear, Michelin, etc. May not mean much but they are not made in a proper Goodyear plant.

Off late I have heard of a couple cases where RFT tires are having issues like this especially on new cars which definitely makes me suspicious of their quality control. The low profile nature could also be a contributing factor.

If I were you I would not have waited till 4th incident and would have replaced all to a Michelin (my trusted never let down brand) tubeless tires and saved myself this headache. It will set me back by ~50K but I'd be fine with it.

[anantc93]

Originally Posted by Turbanator

There is no reason for not claiming insurance under secure advance as its complimentary for the First Year (paid by BMW for tyres/ alloys) and does not affect No-Claim bonus of your regular policy. If you want to continue with this next year not only you have to pay but the choice of insurance providers is limited. So best is to claim all 4 tyres under insurance and keep the tyres that you have bought with you for future. Hope you have the original old tyres as they will match the numbers.

Agreed, but at this stage, I can't even do that because Secure Advance would only cover 3 more tyres (after the first replacement in August) and I would need to pay from my pocket for the 4th one. And even then there is no guarantee that I wouldn't be in the same situation a month later because after the first time I have been extra careful, yet it happened again and again.

Now coming to your observations on another Car, I can assume it went through something similar. Roads here in Gurgaon are really bad. You will need to quickly learn to watch out for such potholes which will be Ok even for an old Maruti 800 but will damage your Beemer. Chances of having a defective Tyre are very less and having 4 similar defects very little.

After the first time, I started taking even special care for potholes. My concern is that this is only happening with the 18 inch Goodyear Runflats in the Sport Shadow edition. Other colleagues at work who have 3 series all have Bridgestones and never had to bother about pressure or potholes.

And a warm welcome here.

GEE, THANKS!

Originally Posted by deepjaju

Really sorry to hear about your bad experience in owning a luxury brand. One option that springs to mind is all the tyres are either defective from a single batch (which seems highly unlikely) and also almost three tyres of yours are manufactured at different dates so that automatically negates manufacturing defect.

I agree, the chance of being a batch/lot problem is minuscule, especially because the tyre which was replaced also developed the same problem within 2 months.

Originally Posted by androdev

When something like this happens, I first look at the plant where the tires are made. The first two digits of the DOT code (NE) refers to the plant code where these tyres are made.

GUMMIWERKE FUIDA G.M.B.H. NE FULDA GERMANY

A bit of googling suggests that Goodyear merged with Dunlop and owns the brands Dunlop, Goodyear, Fulda, Falken and Kelly. Fulda is generally considered a budget brand and not in the same league as Goodyear, Michelin, etc. May not mean much but they are not made in a proper Goodyear plant.

Off late I have heard of a couple cases where RFT tires are having issues like this especially on new cars which definitely makes me suspicious of their quality control. The low profile nature could also be a contributing factor.

That is some information I could have never had! Thanks! I really am inclined to think that the 18 inch size is a problem, especially because of what I stated above about other friends who have a 3 series with 16 and 17inch tyres never faced any problems.

If I were you I would not have waited till 4th incident and would have replaced all to a Michelin (my trusted never let down brand) tubeless tires and saved myself this headache. It will set me back by ~50K but I'd be fine with it.

I agree with you, but it was difficult to convince my father to switch to tubeless, especially because BMW voids the warranty if you switch away from runflats. My father has finally agreed that it would be the last resort.

[bhp]

Hi Anant. Welcome to TeamBhp.

What tire pressure are you maintaining. I would suggest you stick to 30 psi in all the 4 tires, drive carefully over potholes and you should be fine.

I have been keeping 30psi in my 320d and previously on the X1 (17'' rims) and never ever faced such a issue. BMW Tyre recommended is too high for our conditions.

[anantc93]

Originally Posted by bhp

Hi Anant. Welcome to TeamBhp.

What tire pressure are you maintaining. I would suggest you stick to 30 psi in all the 4 tires, drive carefully over potholes and you should be fine.

I have been keeping 30psi in my 320d and previously on the X1 (17'' rims) and never ever faced such a issue. BMW Tyre recommended is too high for our conditions.

Thank you for the warm welcome! I was maintaining 30 psi before the first event. After that, they put the blame on pressure being less than recommended hence I started maintaining 32-35 as recommended.

I'm wondering, is there any way of reaching out to someone in BMW India directly? Don't you think if there's such a widespread problem, specific to the Sport Shadow edition's 18 inch tyres, they should be looking at it?

[Kosfactor]

The odds of you ending up with 5 poorly manufactured tires are extremely unlikely. Apart from manufacturing defects one of the common causes for bulging are overheating and pinching caused by impacts (potholes at high speeds).

I`m attaching the picture which you have posted for reference. The black mark on the rim suggests an impact.

How to avoid this? One way is to ensure proper cold air pressure, stiffer tyre will have less chances of pinching. Low profile tyres, especially run flats may contain a lower volume of air, so air pressure needs to be checked more frequently than say a Tata Sumo tyre.

Please always maintain manufacturer recommended tyre pressure - This is not an offroad tyre that will tolerate under inflation.

PS : My response is entirely based on this picture.
This is an expensive car, the relative cost of tyre in this case is minimal, safety first.

[aah78]

Originally Posted by anantc93

Edit - I was just reading the upsizing tyres thread and found out that tyres should never be older than a year, usually anything more than 6 months is bad

The issues you're having seems to be very similar to what used to happen to the early batches of run-flats when BMW first started sticking them onto their cars.

The Bridgestone run-flat tyres on my E90 3-Series were sensitive to pothole damage & I had a few replaced under their Wheel & Tire Warranty, which was worth every penny.
After the warranty expired, I switched to Michelin Pilot Super Sports (with a compact spare in the trunk). Superb ride & road-holding.

Run-flats have improved tremendously since then & the only issue with my F10 5-Series has been a flat (or 2) due to nails, mainly because I work in an industrial area.

Your Goodyears might be damaged due to hitting potholes at speed (the bumps usually happen that way), or they may be just a bad batch.
There's no point running after them since you've already had 3 tyres replaced in 3 months.
Tell the warranty people clearly that you won't accept replacement Goodyears, & to replace them with equivalent Bridgestone or Michelin.

If they don't, just get rid of the run-flats & replace them with regular tubeless with a compact spare in the trunk. Will give you peace of mind.

[humyum]

I just googled and figured you are running on 18 inch rims with 40 and 45 profile tyres, those are some serious low profile tyres for Indian roads, should this be the cause of those tyre bubbles and bursts?

[ard1955]

https://jalopnik.com/the-tragedy-of-...ium=socialflow

Hey Anantc93, Check this out. Looks like Goodyear has faced similar issues earlier. Incidentally came across this! Hope this might be of some help you in resolving the problem.

[anantc93]

Originally Posted by Kosfactor

How to avoid this? One way is to ensure proper cold air pressure, stiffer tyre will have less chances of pinching. Low profile tyres, especially run flats may contain a lower volume of air, so air pressure needs to be checked more frequently than say a Tata Sumo tyre.

Please always maintain manufacturer recommended tyre pressure - This is not an offroad tyre that will tolerate under inflation.

I did not pay heed to the pressure warning by the salesman first but after the first time I was getting it checked every time I went for refuelling. There was no problem with the pressure in the last 3 months.

Originally Posted by aah78

Your Goodyears might be damaged due to hitting potholes at speed (the bumps usually happen that way)
There's no point running after them since you've already had 3 tyres replaced in 3 months.

I have taken extra care after the first incident, difficult to express in words it on how I have treated this car like a baby. When a middle class guy moves from a Polo to a BMW, they don't take the slightest of risk
Also, I only got the first tyre replaced. Right now the car is in the workshop with all 4 tyres damaged. I decided to not get them replaced under Secure Advance because a friend had a lead who suggested Deutsche dealership might be more helpful. I never got the time to approach Deutsche and then the remaining 2 tyres went down so the situation changed drastically.

Tell the warranty people clearly that you won't accept replacement Goodyears, & to replace them with equivalent Bridgestone or Michelin.
If they don't, just get rid of the run-flats & replace them with regular tubeless with a compact spare in the trunk. Will give you peace of mind.

Yup, I already told Bird Auto that Goodyears are no good. But right now the problem is that even if I use Secure Advance and take a gamble with Bridgestone, I still will have to shell out 40k+ for 3 tyres under warranty and 1 tyre outside warranty (Advance covers only 4 tyres). And even then, I am not sure if the extremely low profile of these 18 inch monstrous tyres would be good enough to last another year.

Originally Posted by humyum

I just googled and figured you are running on 18 inch rims with 40 and 45 profile tyres, those are some serious low profile tyres for Indian roads, should this be the cause of those tyre bubbles and bursts?

That is precisely what I have been shouting to the BMW guys!! If I could find some more Sport Shadow owners I could probably get either peace of mind (if their tyres are fine after 6+ months) or better grounds to complain (if they are in the same pond as I am)

Originally Posted by ard1955

https://jalopnik.com/the-tragedy-of-...ium=socialflow

Hey Anantc93, Check this out. Looks like Goodyear has faced similar issues earlier. Incidentally came across this! Hope this might be of some help you in resolving the problem.

Whoa, that's troubling! So G159 is a model of the tyre? Any idea how to find the model of my tyres? Sorry I don't have a lot of knowledge on tyres but I want to do a bit of Googling myself to see if I am a lonely fish in the pond or there are others like me.

[aah78]

Originally Posted by anantc93

That is precisely what I have been shouting to the BMW guys!! If I could find some more Sport Shadow owners I could probably get either peace of mind (if their tyres are fine after 6+ months) or better grounds to complain (if they are in the same pond as I am)

Whoa, that's troubling! So G159 is a model of the tyre? Any idea how to find the model of my tyres?

The wheel/tire size is fine - unless you drive on gravel or off-road all the time.

For 18" the ride will be stiffer. If you really want, you can go down to 17", which will improve ride & give you a larger sidewall, hence, softer ride.

16" will be even better but then the car will look like a sofa with castors.

The tire model on your is Goodyear EfficientGrip RunOnFlat 225/45R18. It's printed on the sidewall.
Can't make out the rear but should be the same, unless you have a staggered wheel setup, in which case it'll probably be 245 or 255 with a 40/35 profile on 18" wheel.

I checked the Bimmerpost forums & saw a couple of posts have had the same issue with this same model & size of tyre in other countries, as well.

You'll probably do a lot better if you just scrap these things & get a different brand.