Made a terrible mistake with my car- what shouId I buy instead

[NoMoreMuchin]

I bought a 4 year old bmw with run flat tyres which seemed like such a good idea

Less than a year on I have since bought 5(!) new tyres for it. It can not cope with the rural roads. Tyre shop says that there is so much steel in the tyre walls that they have no give and burst when they hit potholes. I drove on the same roads prior to this in my previous tiny car with tiny tyres (hyundai i10 ) and did not pop a single tyre.

Can anyone recommend anything please? I do high mileage...20k a year so need good mpg, driving mostly on fast A roads with lots of pot holes so the car needs to be able to cope with that. Need a reasonable boot size and reasonable poke as sometimes you have to really put your foot down coming out of side roads round here, and to feel I am in a solid car if that makes sense. Don't care about look of the thing/makes etc. Budget up to 10k. Thanks

You do know you can change the wheels on a car?

If you like the car otherwise then can’t you just change to normal tyres? It looks like you can do this in pairs rather than all at once. I don’t know if you could sell you run flat tyres on?

It’s the wheels you need to change.

Buy smaller alloys and put larger tyres on.

Sell the old alloys with tyres on eBay.

Gosh it would be flipping fantastic if I could just change them?

I thought I couldn't? I literally know nothing about cars (obviously!) and I googled it and it said that the suspension is designed differently so you can't just replace them with normal tyres? But I don't know if I was just looking at tyres and not wheels....Its a bmw x1? does anyone know?

Ask a mechanic 😁 at your local garage or a tyre place.

Thanks Tinty...I did ask the tyre guy today and he said no you can't & to sell it. Maybe I'll try a bmw garage instead before I do in case he is wrong.

You can change the wheels to normal alloys with traditional tyres. It’s nothing to do with the suspension.

thanks Sadie

The money you would likely lose trying to sell a car and buy a new one (especially in the current economic climate) would be more than buying a new set of alloys.

You should be able to get a set of 4 for around £1000, maybe less if you look on eBay or gumtree.

Remember you want smaller alloys and normal tyres. Say a 19 inch alloy.

Depends. Does the vehicle have TPMS? (The tyre pressure monitoring system which alerts you if your pressure system is low.)
These sensors are mounted in the rim of each wheel and if you change wheels & tyres, the Body Control Module will not pick up the sensor readings and leave you with a permanent warning light illuminated on your dash.
This may or may not be able to be switched off but it's something to consider or ask about.

And also, thinking about it, have you enquired about fitting a slightly higher profile, non run flat tyre on the car? This should be possible and give increased ride comfort while still fitting the rim, as long as the vehicle isn't lowered or has sports suspension.

So, I'm tyre speak you'd go from a 225/45/16 to a 225/50/16 for instance. (The '45' being the depth in mm of the sidewall of your tyre)

The '45' being the depth in mm of the sidewall of your tyre

The ‘45’ is the depth of the sidewalk as a percentage of the width of the tyre. In your example 45% of 225mm.

OP - there is no reason you can’t switch to non-runflats on the wheels you have. This is VERY common in BMW circles. Many people swap the tyres as soon as the car leaves the showroom.

sidewall damn autocorrect!