well this morning on my way to work, i got on the freeway and my flat tire light came on, so i pulled over and checked the tires, and they all looked fine. so i drove off and held the flat tire button long enough to reset the system, so the light would turn off. well i was on my way,on my 25 mile drive, the light did not come on again, and as i was exiting the freeway to arive at work, i heard a flat tire sound, and sure enough, my front right tire was very flat and low . so should the light have came on again after resseting the tire monitor? or was i supposed to push the button again?

thanks

 

I need to look again in the owners manual, but I think you need to reset while the car is not in motion to recalb itself. I could be wrong...

But, my advise is to keep a tire pressure guage with you in the car and check
your tire pressure when the monitor comes on...just to be on the safe side.

 

With run-flats the tire may not look flat when there is minimal pressure in the tire, so it's a good idea to carry a tire pressure gage in the car.

As for whether or not the light should have come on again, it probably wouldn't if there was no air in the tire the first time. You can drive on the tire with no air for 50 miles, which sounds like exactly what happened.

I'm guessing because of that, the system behaved correctly given the inputs.

 

You can't check your tires by looking at them. The runflats have a stiff sidewall and will not look low until they are out of air. Sounds like the warning light was trying to tell you, but you reset it.

 

so then if the tire monitor comes on, and you reset it while the tire is still flat or leaking air, the monitor will not come back on?

 

Correct, you are basically telling the system that this is the amount of pressure that you want...meanwhile the tire is flat!

I have an unmounted, wheel-less run-flat sitting here in my office and it looks exactly like the tire mounted on my MINI...it's a brick. Resetting it was your mistake...it was trying to tell you something. As stated by others, when the light comes on, check the pressure...in some cases it may only mean that one tire needs a little air. I've had the light come on only to go out later after I had checked the pressure...false reading or a glitch I suppose.

Reset the system only after you are very sure that everything is in order.

 

Yeah, I would only reset the indicator when you are sure (by checking it the tire pressure gauge or taking it to someone who has one) that the tire pressure is in fact where you want it to be. That light and dinging is a bit annoying, but better to reset it when you know it's right! Good luck next time!

 

o well, at least i know for next time

now to figure out how to get home , should i call AAA, have someone take me to a tire shop by my work,drive it home ,or sleep at eh office

 

It's a RUN-FLAT, right? Wouldn't you just drive it to the nearest available place to get the tire serviced (at a reduced rate of speed, of course)?

 

well from what i have read, you can go approx 50 miles on the runflat, and i have used 30 of those miles on may way to work this morning, so,i guess if i can find a shop within 20 miles, i might be able to drive there. well i better start looking, i got about 3 hours left.

 

My flat tire sensor came on once...I have non-runflats. Of course, when it happened the prospect of fishing my spare out from under my Cooper for the first time was something to be avoided, so I drove straight to a nearby tire shop (coulda gone to an air pump at a gas station, too) and checked all the tires. Fortunately, one tire was WAY over inflated (just got it back from the body shop and they had swapped some wheels/tires) so there was no ambiguity about there being a definite problem. Once the tire pressure was correctly set I drove immediately to a nearby parking lot and got my owner's manual out of the boot to figure out how to reset the flat tire sensor. I followed the instructions word for word...I would not have figured it out intuitively on-the-fly. There's a definite process to the thing. Anyway, I reset it and all was well...I motored off happily.

The sensor worked!!!

 

Also, your flat tire monitor will come on after you've changed all four tires out with new ones of a smaller or larger size. For example, I changed all 4 runflats mounted on 16" rims with 4 non-runflats on 15" rims... after a few miles driving on the new 15" tires/rims, the flat tire light went on. It wasn't because I had a flat, it was because the smaller tires made the system think I had a flat because there was a change in rotational speed since the last time I had driven (with the 16s" on) I reset the monitor and it hasn't come on since, and yes, all 4 non-runflats are fully inflated at 32 PSI.

Rock On,

-Boognish

 

Im not a scientist on the run-flat subject, but I have had some experience that might help.

A while back, I had a problem with my tires screaching around EVERY turn and when I took off at moderate acceleration. After 2 weeks or so, it really started to bug me so I took it to a tire shop. They said that it was probably the tire pressure. Turns out my tires were pretty low(60% of their required pressure) I dont know how they got that low(over time I suppose) but that's besides the point. They filled the pressure to its normal psi and that fixed the problem. When they were filling the pressure, they showed me that my front passenger had a bulge in the outer wall of the tire. They said that this was no doubt from the low pressure and that the tire should probably be changed.

I am not sure if a regular tire would produce a bulge in the outside just from being low. I tend to think that the RUN-flat in the tire(stiffened side wall) is why that bulge was there. That having been said, to answer the question running on the run flat for a long time may eventually ruin the tire.

Hope that helps.

 

well i called the dealer, and they said to take it to an authorized pirelli dealer, and it might be covered under warrenty. so i am going to try to go today and see what happens

thanks for all the help

 

Ok so i was on the freeway today and the light came on. I Pulled over at a BP with an air pump all ready to just fill her back up. I went and checked all the tires, and they were all perfectly filled.

So the question is this. I have one tire that is more bald then the others due to a bad alignment (getting it re-aligned soon). Would this affect it in anyway? Maybe it wouldnt get as much traction and thus mess with the rotational speed?

What do you guys think?

Edit: these are not runflats, rather they are Falken Ziex's

 

I'm not sure how the sensor works, perhaps someone can enlighten us, but it's my understanding that it senses any difference in the height of all four tires and when there is a discrepancy the warning chimes.

It could be the tread, I suppose...I have had the warning come on under very hard high speed cornering, on the track of course , and then go off...side wall compression?

 

hmmm, well i guess if the one tire is really bald compared to the others, that it could possibly trigger the sensor. since the car would essentially be riding lower on that one corner, and would trick the sensor into thinking that the tire is actually flat, when it is just sitting lower because of the lower tread compared to the 3 other tires

 

Hmmm....i wonder what else it could have been? Its not so bald that it would lower the height...i just thouhgt maybe it would mess with the roational speed