If you’ve bought a new car or replacement tires for your old car lately, you may have had the pricey option of run-flat tires. The sales pitch for them is easy: while some people may enjoy changing tires or waiting for roadside assistance, most people don’t. Run-flats aren’t a foolproof way to avoid tire trouble.

One BMW owner told our sibling publication Consumer Reports that he thought the $2,500 tire insurance policy that the dealership offered him was outlandish, until he ended up replacing a total of eight tires at about $500 each. The problem is that run-flat tires aren’t immune to side-wall damage, which leads to unfortunate comparisons to the Titanic and unexpected flats.

Worse: the first time that this happened to the reader, he learned that his car came with a repair kit instead of a spare in the trunk. That’s a common issue with new cars, aWhen you buy a car, new or used, you should know what kind of tires are on it before you take the keys: you could be buying a car in June that still has snow tires on it, for example. (Yes, this happened to someone I know. At a dealership.)

Consumer experience sheds dim light on this increasingly common technology [Consumer Reports]

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