[stephensilber]

Hi all,

I finally rescued my MINI from the EPA three days ago (Tuesday) and have been having some awful luck. On my drive home, I hit something on the freeway that caused my driver side-rear tire to pop. I didn't want to risk driving on it since I was almost 50 miles from home, so I had it towed. Tire place replaced the tire for about $300. That sounds like bad luck. This morning, on my 3 mile drive to work (ALL MAIN ROADS), my driver-side left tire popped and needs complete replacement. The tire place inspected all of my tires the first time, so I know that there was no existing damage from the Tuesday incident.

What can I do to protect myself from all of these flat tires / will the tire manufacturer step up and do something when I have 2/4 remaining tires after less than 300 miles?

 

[sirron]

Hi all,

I finally rescued my MINI from the EPA three days ago (Tuesday) and have been having some awful luck. On my drive home, I hit something on the freeway that caused my driver side-rear tire to pop. I didn't want to risk driving on it since I was almost 50 miles from home, so I had it towed. Tire place replaced the tire for about $300. That sounds like bad luck. This morning, on my 3 mile drive to work (ALL MAIN ROADS), my driver-side left tire popped and needs complete replacement. The tire place inspected all of my tires the first time, so I know that there was no existing damage from the Tuesday incident.

What can I do to protect myself from all of these flat tires / will the tire manufacturer step up and do something when I have 2/4 remaining tires after less than 300 miles?

Take it to the dealer. Say you're going to park next to the dealer with a large sign until they replace the tires.

 

[jeremybingham]

Poor you that's dreadful luck. Are you blaming the tyre or the roads?

 

[karbair]

What brand of tires do you have???

 

[stephensilber]

Poor you that's dreadful luck. Are you blaming the tyre or the roads?

At this point, I have to blame the tire for at least one of the incidents. The first one could have been poor luck, but the second one seems like a fault in the tire to me.

What brand of tires do you have???

I have Pirellis. I found a road hazard warranty on their website but I have not heard back from them. I would hope that they would honor it with less than 300 miles on the car (3 days old)

 

[TheScotsman]

I am not sure how things work in your neck of the woods, but MINI here in the UK do tyre insurance where any tyre get replaced depending on tread depth. For example brand new tyres would be replaced free and part worn tyres would be half paid for you and you pay the other half.

 

[irmark88]

Take it to the dealer. Say you're going to park next to the dealer with a large sign until they replace the tires.

Absolutely do not do this.. this is wrong. The dealership did nothing to encourage the tires do 'pop'.

Tires are the part of a car that manufacturers cannot control. You could drive over nails every day of the year and not even do it on purpose. Dealerships often offer coverage on tires and rims since the whole car is covered except rims and tires by the manufacturer warranty / maintenance.

If your dealership offers something like that then I would recommend looking into that. If you can get a hold of Pirelli and they will honor the road hazard then that's great!

 

[jeremybingham]

I once had a tyre pop for absolutely no reason at all 1980s on a brand new mini metro-fortunately they were early run flats and I could still steer to the hard shoulder. Some while back Continental had a batch of tyres-around 2002 I think that had to be recalled due to the tyre walls cracking-so tyres can be to blame occasionally-though usually I think something causes it! What I am saying is you need to investigate all angles-your dealer might help-you may well have just run over something/hit a kerb etc etc but tyres can and do VERY OCCASIONALLY have faults I am sure-nothing manufactured can be 100% perfect.