Run Flat Tires

Initial Review, 15,000 Miles on Tires
February 18, 2013

Great tire for the money. Traction is above average and adequate for most driving styles. Tire will give up if pushed or ran hot. This tire does have a LOT of road noise though. More road noise than the OEM run flats. Wear is good. 70% tread left after 15k of 'spirited' driving.

Initial Review, 1,200 Miles on Tires
February 14, 2013

I replace these tires for the factory conti ssr on my 335 xdrive. The original conti is very good however these MXM4 is just better. better in almost very area including better traction, sharper cornering and softer ride and less noise. I have driven these tires in dry,wet and snow conditions. It capable of all road conditions in Chicago, even in some deep snow and ices, it feels safe.
The only draw back is seems the tire have 1 less mile per gallon in gas, it might be due to change of driving behavior, but it is really don't hurt compare to all those gains i had. Over all, it is the best run flat i have driven on.

ps.I just went to the dealer for service, they measured the tire tread depth, seems it is also consume faster than the factory conti, but it does come with deeper thread then the conti ssr, so assume they have the same life.

Initial Review, 20,000 Miles on Tires
February 17, 2013

Beware of this tire if you want them to last a while and want to be pleased. It is not a good tire for a Lexus GS AWD 2006-2011. I had OEM run-flats that I replaced with this tire. It has not been a good experience at all. The tires pull very badly even after proper maintenance. The problem started at about 10,000 miles and has just gotten worse to the point it is severe. The tires have been rotated and the car has been kept in alignment. The tires pull hashly and the pull causes the car go out of the lane when the steering wheel is not held tightly. The dealership I use to have my car maintained mentioned that these tires were "directional" and some vehicles do not do well with "directional" tires. This vehicle is one of those. Also, these tires are not good for wet, snow, or ice traction. I live in southern IL, which we do not get too much ice or snow, but when we do, I cannot count on these tires to get me through even with the AWD I have. Would not buy again if they were the only tires offered. The ride has been nice and the noise low, but the problems with these make these tires a Do Not Buy Again for me.

Initial Review, 11,000 Miles on Tires
February 08, 2013

I purchased my X5 Sport AV in April and i was shocked to see the treat wear on the front tires. If 10-15K is all i can get out of these i will never purchase Dunlops again. My last X5 i installed Breyton 20" with Mich Dimas and they lastest 5 years.

Initial Review, 22,000 Miles on Tires
February 04, 2013

I bought these because it was original equipment, I should have known when I bought the car it had 18,000 miles on it and it needed tires. But I did it anyway and only got 22,000 miles and almost paid double that of a non run flat tire and Im sure I would have gotten double the miles if I had bought the regular tire at half the price

Initial Review, 3,600 Miles on Tires
February 05, 2013

I put these on in the middle of summer and they are really great looking tires. They handle the dry pavement here in Minnesota well. Our roads are not great and have some rough spots and these tires eat that up like nothing. I will have to give them a little lower grade for noise level but by no means more than average. The tires are great for wet weather traction and have deep channels to push water away from center of the tire.
As for fall and winter they made the transition great. They run just as well through deep snow better than average. They are not as good as snow tires but for those of us who don’t want to swap tires twice a year they are perfect. They are great in cold weather (<0°F). They don’t flat spot at all.
Tread wear looks good even with my spirited driving style.
To wrap it up I WILL be buying these again for a passenger car tire. They give me the looks I require from a tire and the performance I crave.

Initial Review, 800 Miles on Tires
December 13, 2012

I've only had this tire on my car for about 1 month/800 miles. I'm exchanging them for a set of Continental DWS instead. The RE970's have great steering response. The DWS have ok steering response, which gets better with higher PSI.
Why the switch? The 970's are quiet, quieter than the stock Bridgestone summer performance S001 that came on the car.
They are a decent tire but they are directional. My 335i has staggered tires so I can't rotate my tires, but with non directional tires, like the DWS, I can at least swap them left to right, and that made a difference when I had them on a previous 135i.
Also, the RE970's make my 335i's rear end HOP on hard standing start launches.
The worst part of the 970's is their ride. On smooth pavement the ride is excellent, and very quite. But, on moderate to larger bumps or road imperfections these tires 'crash' into bumps and the shock is sent into the cars chassis. I hate that. The stock tires were run flats, which are notorious for having a harsher ride on road imperfections impact. These RE970's feel about the same as RFT's except they aren't RFT's.
On impacts these tires feel heavy, and literally their are. Their weight is about as much as the OEM RFT's. I can see why Tire Rack got a 1mpg decrease with these tires, they are heavy, and more unsprung weight can degrade MPG and performance. I'm surprised these tires received the high praise they did. Granted, steering response is excellent for an all season tire, but ride comfort is not that great. Also, I don't see how the tread on the 970's can be good even in light snow. There seems to be no siping at all and moderate tread. We're not seeing snow reviews and it's becoming clearer that Bridgestone did not improve snow capability. Isn't that why we buy all seasons in the first place? I know I do. I'll give up some steering response for better year round performance, and better ride comfort.

Initial Review, 35,000 Miles on Tires
January 23, 2013

This tire came as OEM on my 2011 MINI Countryman. I drive in a pretty spirited manner, and like to take curves somewhat fast - as such I feel like I've gotten a good amount of tread life out of the tires, especially compared to other tires I've used on previous MINI models.

The tire performance is I feel really good for an all season tire. I've been satisfied with it in really hot conditions, but also the performance on ice and snow is really good for an all season tire.

An all season tire is never going to be as grippy as a performance tire, or quite as good on ice as a dedicated snow tire. But if you just want one set of tires to last a year and do pretty well all around, these seem to be the best I have used.

Also of note is that I've also used the tires for light off-road driving - some forest roads. The tires seemed fine and did not give me any problems.

Initial Review, 14,000 Miles on Tires
January 28, 2013

I have a BMW x5 and while this is an excellent performing tire, tread life is absolutely HORRIBLE. I'm looking at new fronts in another 1k miles and new rears soon after. I expect more than 15k out of my tires and have had tires on other vehicles last 40-50k, so I know it isn't entirely my spirited driving. Not a fan of these Dunlops.

Initial Review, 3,000 Miles on Tires
January 25, 2013

Finally ditched the OEM Bridgestone Turanza EL42 Run-Flats with 35k miles on them. They were acceptable on smooth Florida roads but the recent move to DC quickly made new tires a priority; their harshness over bumps was getting ridiculous. I opted for the Goodyears even though they are not run-flats because I wanted a high-performance all-season tire that wasn't as stiff-riding as the originals.

Positives: Much more comfortable over bumps or harsh roads. The previous review on the Subaru doesn't make sense to me; the Goodyears are notably softer-riding than the Bridgestone RFTs I had. Grip seems about the same with great confidence in the rain.

Negatives: Since the sidewall is softer than the run-flats I had before, the steering is not as crisp and direct. The car doesn't feel as directly connected to the road.

Overall I like them better than the OEM run-flats because they give me good performance with a more comfortable ride. I'll review again after they've got a lot more mileage to see if that has changed.

Initial Review, 100 Miles on Tires
December 24, 2012

I bought these tires based off of high ratings, but am sorely disappointed. I don't have a sense yet of how these tires perform near the limits, but I can say I'm sick about the total lack of smoothness and the level of noise. I feel EACH and EVERY road imperfection, and on anything but the absolute best, smoothest asphalt, it's like someone embedded rocks onto the surface of the tire... and the noise is there to match.

Roads that I used to not consider "bad" I now avoid because of the roughness of these tires.

This car had Goodyear run-flat touring tires as original equipment, like a previous car I had. On that previous car, I puts Michelin Pilot Sport A/S on it, and I thought they were better (payed for it though...). Responsiveness seems fine, on par with the Michelin PSS, and the feedback is definitely more immediate than the heavy run-flats that were on the car. But these are so uncomfortably loud and rough, I highly doubt I'm going to live with them.

Initial Review, 40,000 Miles on Tires
January 08, 2013

Treadwear is excellent. I have had 2 punctures on the right rear tire and was able to drive over 30+ miles with tire with no air in it and felt completely stable and safe. If I did not know better, I would say it is a run-flat tire. This is great tire and the price can't be beat. A definite buy and a repeat.

Initial Review, 500 Miles on Tires
January 22, 2013

I've only had these tires a couple weeks so I can't comment on treadwear or wet/snow performance. But I can say that the difference in ride quality is phenomenal (they replaced run flats). A MINI Cooper suspension is stiff by design; but with run flat tires, on 17" rims, in sport mode…if you hit a nickel lying in the road, you’ll spill your coffee. With the Continental Extreme DWS tires I can hit all the loose change I want. Plus, the run flats were very loud whereas the Continental’s are so quiet that I can now hear my wife telling me to slow down. I’m very happy with these tires.

Initial Review, 1,000 Miles on Tires
January 03, 2013

The combination of AWD and these tires makes for a decently stable winter ride.

Initial Review, 3,500 Miles on Tires
December 30, 2012

I've had these Pirellis on my 335xi for a bit over a month now and I've out almost 3,500 miles on them since, in a number of conditions.

In the last week especially, I've experienced just about everything you could throw at these and I'd frankly rate them as bulletproof.

This last week I road tripped to VA from CT to see my family (800 mile round trip) with warm temps at times (50s) and cold (10s). I had light snow & slush, dry roads and cold and the tires just get better the folder it gets. I then drove to VT yesterday to go snowboarding (350 miles round trip) and returned in a heavy winter storm (4+ inches of heavy snow). Roads were NOT being plowed in any state (VT, MA, CT) and tires handled great. Lots of confidence going up and down hills, great braking, ABS/TC never kicked in once and never felt any slip. And most of the drive through MA and CT was like driving through Donner Pass in CA when it's chains only (which I've done a few times - lots of packed snow, can't see lanes, chains or AWD/4WD with snows required) and the 210s were solid. Able to easily do 40-50, visibility & traffic permitting (probably faster but girlfriend didn't like that).

My point of comparison for these is the Continental ContiPro RFTs in OEM size that were the original tires on my vehicle. They rode really hard and were quite loud. The 210s ride a bit softer, and are quieter (for an RFT - not as quiet as non-RFTs). Worlds better in snow handling. Contis were a bit better in dry/warm than 210s, which can feel a bit mushy in corners at speed, but the more miles I get on them, the more its like riding on rails.

If you have an AWD car and live where there's snow, or drive to where there's snow, step up and get yourself some snows - best decision I ever made.

Initial Review, 14,000 Miles on Tires
January 15, 2013

Terrible! These tires were OEM on our BMW 535xi/M sports. In 14 months of driving, 5 of the tires have either bubbled or burst. They will not tolerate potholes or poor road conditions, making driving in the Northeast very difficult and unsafe at times. The thrill of driving a BMW is completely gone - we must drive slower and constantly look out for every imperfection in the road. Every day we do a visual check to see if any of the tires has started to bubble. BMW has been very disappointing through all of this - uninterested, unhelpful, uninformed, unsatisfying - giving us conflicting information on alternative choices for these tires. This experience has taught us that we will never own another BMW. Goodyear, on the other hand, has been very helpful. They used to warranty the tires, and provided reimbursement for replacement due to road hazard damage during the first 12 months based on tire condition. However, they stopped doing this in January, 2013. We were fortunate that Goodyear reimbursed us for the first 4 tires. Beware of BMW's with run on flat tires!

Initial Review, 30,000 Miles on Tires
December 29, 2012

These are the OEM tires that came on the X3. They have been pretty good and have not had vibrations. We recently had about 8" of snow and they still grab and accelerate decent in the snow. However, with 30K on them they do not corner at all. You really need to slow way down. There is about 4/32 tread left on the tire. Overall they are decent for OEM and are not crazy expensive to replace on a leased vehicle.

Initial Review, 3,000 Miles on Tires
December 29, 2012

Unbelievable Tires. Drove them in two snow storms and the rear wheel drive car performed close to an all wheel drive vehicle. Great in the snow, also great on dry and wet road. The difference in the snow compare to the high performance all season tires is unreal. Now I can drive up my steep drive way when snow covered, which was impossible with the all seasons. Definitely a great buy.