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Well, after a one week exile to the frozen tundra of Charleston, SC, I got back into the newly sunny Bay Area on Friday. Saturday shaped up to be a beuatiful day and the top-down urgency was heightened by forecasts of rain for Sunday. We hit the road for a trip to Lafayette for Michele to get a haircut followed by a stop by her school in WC (to drop off some graded papers -- any excuse for a spin in the Z3 in January!). Ah, the best laid plans...
The trip up through Crow Canyon was fabulous. Traffic on 680N was a bit heavy but still moving at 80+. As we approached the 680-24 interchange in Walnut Creek, I as usual couldn't remember which side the ramp to 24 exited from, so I had to accelerate to slip into a break in traffic in the lane to my right as the ramp approached. The back end felt a little skittish as I merged, but I thought it was the newly resurfaced ramp. As we started the big sweeper to the left, it became very clear that this was much more than a road surface problem -- the rumble got louder, then the DSC light came on as the back started to fish-tail. I let off on the gas and drifted as gently as possible to a stop on the left shoulder of the ramp right before it merged onto 24W. Looked over Michele's shoulder to find the source of our trouble and saw and smelled burning rubber. Uh, oh.
On inspection, the right rear Michelin MXM pilot had completely blown out all the way around the outside sidewall and most of the way around the inside. All this in less than a quarter mile at 70 mph less than a week after I had doubled checked the pressures!! On the bright side, the car handled quite well at freeway speeds in a fairly hard left turn with basically jsut two ribbons of burning rubber between the wheel and the pavement.
Now it was time to try out the good old BMW roadside assistance. Of course we don't have a cell phone, so we had to shlep back down the nearby on-ramp from Mt. Diable Blvd to a gas station. Got to hold for 5 minutes, then described our location 3 times to the woman who answered (we were in a fairly hard to explain spot). Once she understood the problem, she offered tos end a truck to help us with the spare. I said I'd rather get a flatbed tow to a dealer since I wasn't keen on transporting the wheel and blown tire in Michele's lap with the donut on. Had to explain this another three times before she said the truck would be by within an hour. Trecked back to car and waited on guardrail as a parade of looky-loos rolled by and gawked at the cool car with the blown tire on the side of the road. 2 Z3s zipped by (tires intact, top down, sympathy waves from both). Sigh.
After 35 minutes of waiting, the truck pulled up. Guy was very nice and he complemented the car at least 4 times, but he obviously had never done this with a Z3 before. First, I had to explain the tow ring attachment in the bumper, then he couldn't figure out how he would be able to tie the car down to the truck once he got it loaded. In the end, he merely helped me change the tire (nice, but I could have done that in less than the hour from blow-out to his arrival) and then cram the wheel and tire carcass in the trunk. FWIW, a blown tire + wheel does fit comfortably in the trunk along with 10 kids' writing journals and a Noah car cover. Michele ended up with the donut cradle in her lap since the instruction advised against putting it back in the spare holder under the car without the spare in it.
Donut installed, we limped back into WC to look for a tire place at 2:50 on a Saturday. Prospects were dim. Big O said they could get us a raplacement by Monday. American Tire CO said Wednesday for $20 more than Big O. Finally, at 3:55, Wheelworks had a single Michelin MXM Pilot HW 225/50/R16 in stock for $213 installed. Sold. They carefully (under my watchful eyes) removed the blown tire, inspected the wheel and found no damage, and then installed the new tire without marring the finish at all. Whew. An hour and a half later, we pulled out of their parking lot with a lighter wallet, the donut back in its cradle, a new tire on the right rear, and the tire carcass in the official BMW garbage bag in the trunk awaiting presentation at our dealer. We managed to get dinner before heading back home without accomplishing any of our other original mission objectives.
Do I have any hope of getting BMW to fork over for the new tire? Seems a bit odd that a tire with 6000 miles on it and no visible signs (at least on the parts of the tire that remain) of any road hazard damage that might have caused a leak would simply blow up at 70 mph on a relatively brand new stretch of freeway.
Now it's raining again. Thanks for sharing my pain.
Mike
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