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Mike Filipek, an engineer with Bridgestone/Firestone, says that run-flats have roughly the same speed and distance limitations as the compact "doughnut" spares found in most vehicles. In a pinch, one can also replace a run-flat tire with a conventional one long enough to complete a trip. He also says the company began working on run-flat tires only after drivers repeatedly said in surveys and studies that they wanted them.
"Consumers truly want the smallest amount of hassle in their lives, and run-flat tires move in that direction," says Filipek.
Still, unlike other safety equipment such as side air bags, anti-lock brakes and electronic stability control, run-flat tires have yet to gain the broad acceptance that tire makers had expected. Indeed, more than a decade after they began to appear on a handful of sports cars, run-flats are available on relatively few vehicles and account for only about 1% of the tire market.
Their price has helped hold back run-flat tires. Tire makers say they can cost as much as 30% more than comparable conventional tires. But those comparable tires are higher-performance conventional tires that typical buyers wouldn't consider. In the real world, run-flats can easily cost double what consumers are accustomed to paying.
Harmon Fischer, a retired supermarket executive in Jefferson, La., and BMW Mini Cooper driver, calls run-flats "possibly the biggest rip-off," in part because they can't be repaired like conventional tires -- or at least many shops refuse to patch them because they lack the necessary certification required by the tire makers.
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Developed in part for the unique hazards of off-road rally competition and military use, run-flat tires began turning up on a handful of exclusive passenger cars, including the exotic Porsche 959 in the late 1980s and Chevrolet Corvette and Plymouth Prowler in the mid-1990s. They have since been used on Lexus, Mercedes-Benz and BMW cars and on certain Toyota and Honda minivans. Most run-flats are really high-performance tires and as such have higher prices and shorter tread life than typical mass-market tires.
The newest models increasingly have been designed for family-oriented vehicles like large and midsize sedans and crossovers. Such tires will have longer tread life and lower prices than earlier run-flat designs. Still, Bridgestone's Filipek doesn't expect consumers' historically slow adoption rate of the technology to speed up appreciably.
"I remember how long it took people to switch to radial tires from the older bias-ply tires, so I fully expect run-flats to catch on slowly."
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A recent study by J.D. Power & Associates placed run-flat tires on a list with stability control, night-vision systems, blind-spot detection and side-impact air bags as features that consumers find most attractive before knowing the estimated market price. The tires were the second-most highly rated feature among consumers before they knew the cost. But their high price hurt consumer interest. After the cost was revealed, run-flats fell to seventh on the list, behind stability control, backup assist and premium sound systems.
This article was reported and written by Jonathan Welsh for The Wall Street Journal.
Published Aug. 17, 2007
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