Note: These events occurred some time ago…
So the whole family’s on the way to sign refinance papers in two cars so I can go back to work after we’re done. I hop in the BMW and out the garage. About 1/2 a block out, things don’t feel right. Two blocks out I feel something’s very wrong, like I’m missing teeth on the differential or something. I pull over and the passenger rear tire’s out. Bad news. Luckily, the wife, kids, and truck are only around the corner so I call them on the cell and they come back to get me.
This should be interesting as I haven’t changed a tire in a long time. Luckily, BMW makes it easy an painless to recover from these eventualities, you see, BMW’s sport a full size spare (sometimes on a premium wheel, like mine.) The shop lift I have in the garage won’t fit under the low slung 330i sport so I use the funny looking contraption jack that came with the car. It worked much better than I expected and had the tire changed in about seven minutes. Needless to say, the kids were very impressed.
A quick inspection revealed the problem, a huge screw in the middle of the tire. Much like this one:
I took it to the dealer and they couldn’t fix it because I’d damaged the side wall during my two blocks of driving, and the tread was too thin. WHAT! I’ve had these Pirellis for about 25,000 miles, they can’t be bad already!
There’s nothing I can do. The dealer won’t fix them and I need the car in top shape. So I head back to tirerack…
If these sport tires are only going to last 25,000 miles I’m getting something cheap. Good thing ’cause the same Pirelli’s are now $50 more, each, and out of stock.
That’s when I found General Tire. I don’t know anything about them, I don’t care. I just need cheap sport tires. So I picked a couple of these General Tire Exclaim UHPs for the rear of the BMW:
…Tire Rack got them to me a day early for less than $100 each. Good deal. Got them to the dealer and had them swapped out for another $100.
Brand new they they tracked (squirmed) around the road funny, but 4000 miles later they’ve settled down and feel like the Pirellis.
I didn’t change the front’s as they still had good tread on them, probably a total 50,000 miles worth. But when they go, I’ll probably get a couple more Exclaims.
Here’s how they look on the car:
