I took my wife to Costco the other evening, probably should have driven somthing but the MINI but I could'nt resist the oportunity to drive. We bought six cases of soda and some bottled water plus a whole lot of other things. They all fit in the MINI just fine, but when we started to drive off the flat tire warning light along with the DSC warning light came on. When I got home I unloaded everything a checked the air presure, it was 35 pounds in all four tires. (I have an S with 17" tires). I got out the owners manual and reset the monitor below the hand brake and drove around the area for about five minutes. I then went home and shut off the car and restarted it and the light was gone. I guess I need to air up the tires more if I'm going to be using for a mule.

FatBob
Electric Blue S

 

If the car was loaded uneavenly enough it could squash one tire, effectivly reducing it's radius, and fool the monitor into thinking it was deflated. As a 'flat' runflat is not supposed to be visible to the naked eye I suspect you wouldn't be able to see the diference in squishidge* when the car was loaded.

Pebble.
:smile:

*squishidge (skw-ish-idj) n, The ammount by which somthing is squished.

 

After driving my new MC for one week, my flat tire warning light came on. I thought that the gauge must have been defective. Sure enough, when I checked my tires, I found a nail. I guess this warning system really works!!

 

This fault is common. It's either the runflat light on it's own or the Run-Flat and DSC lights together that malfunction. That's why it pays to have a pressure gage in the car to tell if this is real or not.

In 11,800 miles on my MCS I have had this happen once. The light went out after about 15 minutes.

It's not a big deal.

 

I had two complete sets of diving equipment, including tanks and weights, in mine and had no problems. The rear tires should have gone down a little.

 

Fatboy,
the exact thing happened to me this pass sunday and i only had a set of golf clubs, laundry basket, and an empty 8 gallon fish tank at the time. the same lights came on. i then shut off the S and restarted it, but these lights were still on. then i let it set for about 5 minutes and restarted. this time the lights went out. so i really wounder if it had anything to do with the load that we have on our S's. i also wounder if the factory know about this. anyways, i hope it doesn't happen again. but i still going to continue to MOTOR....so MOTOR on.....


bbt4
electric blue MCS

 

I had the flat tire warning come on three times in 3000 miles. I checked my tire pressure in each case and it was OK. If I was close enought to a BMW MINI dealer I would take it in for them to check.

 

I've had the same problem twice already. Flat tire warning light and DSC light come on at the same time and DSC toggle switch had no effect. The first time, I shut the car off at the gas pump and the lights were gone when I restarted. Same thing happened three days ago, but I can't get the lights to go off. Tire pressure is fine, lights won't go off even after pressure reset per the owner's manual. The car has been on and off multiple times and I have not had any load in the car. I'm due for the first oil change in a couple hundred miles, if the lights are still there, I'll have the dealer take a look.

 

In the first 1,000 miles I had the same thing happen. The DSC light and flat light came on. Checked the tires and all OK. After a couple of start ups, the lights went out. Never had the problem again so I assumed it was a burp. I have picked up two nails since (have to stop going to Home Depot) and the warning system worked great. Had to take the tires to the Pirelli dealer, though, because another tire repair shop said they thought the wheel had sensors like the Corvettes and they didn't want to chance breaking them. When I asked the tire repair guy at the Pirelli dealershp about this, he said there were no sensors in the wheels. So I assume this sensor system works off of the DSC sensors and detects some change in the tire performance. That seems smarter than putting expensive sensors inside the tires. By the way, the Pirelli dealer just plugged the hole. Apparently the run flats don't require any special patching. :smile:

 

This seems to be a common case of "been there, done that."

I've had it happen twice, and as I was told by another poster on the "Mechanical Issues..." thead, it can simply happen if you hit a pothole.

Now where would I find those on the West Side Highway?