Ablert1001

Absolutely same issue, 30,000 KM on the 19 inch rims. 3 sidewall blowouts, 1 after brand new set of tires, 1 rim bend. You would think MB would stop producing a rim with so many issues....

bhcubed

In the 3+ years that I've owned my C450, I've had premature/uneven tire wear, one tire bubble, one side wall rupture, one cracked wheel, and four bent wheels. I just spent $600 for a replacement wheel and to fix a bent wheel. My car came with the continental runflats. Really kicking myself in the butt for not replacing the runflats when I replaced the tires after about 30k miles. I will certainly be switching to non runflats when these tires wear down though for sure. I believe another problem that is contributing to this is every time I take my car for service and have had these repairs done, they fill the tires to their Max PSI (as shown on door placcard) instead of the recommended PSI(as shown on the fuel door). After this last service, they filled all my tires to 46 PSI.

Phil43

Well, it happened to me again today.. 3 times so far, keep in mind my car is 32 days old and has 1559km on it.

The front right took a minor hit again, small pothole, under normal circumstances would of never even been worried. When it hit i checked the psi sensors and was happy to see i was not losing air, upon arrival at home i checked the tire and noticed a 3 inches gash along side the tire very close to the rim.

I threw a fit at the dealer, the car is 32 days old and has already has spent 7 days in service. (Which by the way dealers arent able to get done on the day it happened because they are swamped with tire changes at the moment, they wont admit it but a hour in the waiting room talking to other owners confirmed that) They are assuring me that this is completly uncommon and "we have never seen 3 flat in a month"

I will contacting corpo tomorrow and seeing what can be done, otherwise i am eyeing a set of michelin 4S 19" i am really hoping i dont have to drop down to 18"

Silverbird

All these stories made me make the call to replace the stock 19" runflats with Pilot A/S3+'s next week.

Had them on the A4 Avant that I traded in - great tires, but worth the price.

Graved726

2017 C43 here, on continental run flats. I've 5 tire replacements so far. 3 Sidewall damage, 1 just started losing air pressure over night, and 1 hit a pot hole which ended up also damaging the rim. I had the tire and rim protection package thrown in for free due to loyalty and the sales rep I deal with since I've gone to him for all my benz cars. But safe to say the tire and rim protection package has seriously saved me a bunch of $$$...

Car is now 2 years old at 40k km.

MrBane

You know you can change the tires right?

ryanSTL

alexasa is right. go with the cheapest stock wheel & tire option possible and go aftermarket ASAP. It's not just Benz. OEM wheel & tire setups are generally the most underwhelming (or worse) components of sports cars. so odd because of what a difference the right or wrong setup makes. they are specced to perform during a test drive, blog review / one track day, etc ... but ***** the bed after a few thousand miles.

I changed on my last BMW and had zero worries / issues. I failed to follow this on my C43 and I'm almost $3,000 out of pocket and still rocking the OEM garbage.

Nicholi2007

Sounds like the wheels are cast. Curious as to where they're made and what they weigh. Pretty crazy considering the cost of this car.

Dumi

In 24 months of ownership, I've had 3 pzero runflats replaced (sidewall damage) and 1 cracked wheel. Not a happy camper at all!

Standingoten

5 Pirelli runflat tires replaced and 2 wheel repaired for me thus far. All covered by wheel and tire protection package.

This issue isn’t limited to Mercedes by the way. BMW, Infiniti, Lexus, etc all have the same issue. It’s just the nature of lower profile tires and runflat tires.

My last Infiniti went through 3 run flat tires and 3 bent rims. I didn’t have the tire protection and each tire cost $400. The rims cost $200 each time to fix.

S500Sport

That's why at lease inception I paid $1,200 for R&T Insurance that covers all this stuff including towing the car and rental. It's a must guys. Especially here in NYC, and w/19's.

Just Curious

I am very curious to hear which set of 19”s you guys have and whether this is a problem across all the 19” wheels? I.w twinspoke 5 spoke or the multispoke ones

cbourassa

My issue has not been the tires, it's been the rims. In 9 months of ownership I've had 3 cracked front rims. I seem to think this is an MB issue. There was a lawsuit about the rim/tire combo a few years back that I would suggest people look into. I really don't think its the low profile. I've had low profile OEM rims on every car I've owned and never had this issue even once, even with splitting my time between the awful mountain roads in NH and the even worse streets in Boston.

cowboy019

If you're on the fence about swapping your runflats for non-runflats, DO IT.
I just made the switch after 2 RFT's have gone out on me in the past 12 months, both leaving me with zero air pressure and no car for a weekend (or longer). And wow. The ride is much better. The vibration I used to feel from the passenger side front tire is now gone (I had my wheels balanced over and over and couldn't figure out how to get rid of it). For a "luxury" sports car like the C43, to have it riding on those horrible runflats is a crime against humanity. You're not getting the best experience on those tires.
FYI I'm on 19" AMG wheels.

Sailorlite

Another reason to swap to the non-runflats is that they're available in the "all season" version. Winter roads in California are sometimes closed except to AWD cars with "snow" tires - if your C43 is properly rigged you can get to ski areas while others have to install chains.

Bigwaves

Glad to hear to hear your experience, I love the car and hate the wheels always sounding like they are out of balance. Even started looking at selling the car because of the horrible riding experience. I'll never buy another car with run flats.

johara

Does anybody have experience with third-party (non-dealership) tire and wheel insurance?

Tirgoman

Just had to replace a tire on my 2019 C43 Sedan, ugh. I did not have a tire or wheel plan, historically I've bought some tires but never spent what the plan costs. Interesting on the replacement tire the dealer said it came with a road hazard warranty from their tire supplier at no charge. So I now have one protected tire and 3 unprotected tires.
I've seen all the flack on the runflats and I agree they're harsh and of course not repairable. But the issue is the low profile of the tires and when you hit a pothole or something the edge of the tire is pinched between the wheel rim and the pothole. This either causes an immediate blowout or a "bubble" that soon breaks through. That's caused by the cords in the tire getting cut by the impact. This has nothing to do with the fact that the tire is a runflat, it's because of the low profile of the tire. So you should buy the smaller wheels with the higher profile tires for fewer issues like this, but they sure don't look as cool as a nice large wheel with a low profile tire. The reason they put runflats on the car is to save the weight and cost of a spare tire. This also lets' them claim a larger trunk capacity. And this is partly the doing of the Feds, less weight is better mileage. Life use to be so simple.

Cosworth2000

Can you show a video of them being installed and how they are adjusted?

alexasa

iTrader: (1)

I don't really understand all this mess. Rotating mass/Unsprung weight account for more than body weight. The weight on all four corners probably barely makes up for running the spare - treating them as equals. The second you actually treat that rotating mass/unsprung weight accordingly ( ~ 3:1 ratio) you handedly have a better performing set-up than run flats could ever give you - both in terms of efficiency, deceleration and acceleration. Trunk space is certainly a factor these days..

But, even with more sidewall it doesn't help much with runflats because either way they have to be so stiff to ensure the car is supported on this sidewall with no air in the tire.

cowboy019

The stiff sidewall on runflats would make them more susceptible to damage from potholes. There is nowhere for the force to go, so it essentially dislodges the tire from the rim (and increases the probability of rim damage). That has happened to me twice in the past year. I've been driving for almost 30 years and have never had tires blow out on me like this ever before. Right or wrong, I'm blaming the runflats.

AMGiggity

Former M4 owner. I am going to use this opportunity to rant about my C43 at the expense of upsetting MB fanboys.

Tranny: you did not elaborate on your problem but in S+ it can go crazy, even as high as 3rd gear!
A lot of rattling specially near center console and sunroof. Interior quality is not as good as it looks.
Garbage infotainment, average sound system- to be fair I knew these before buying.

I mean, I enjoy driving it and let's be honest, it's monthly depreciation can feed a village in Africa so I should be grateful and not be whining but this thing is gone in about a year. Back to M.

johara

Have you guys checked the air pressure in your tires? All my tires were overinflated on delivery from the dealership when compared to the recommended air pressure list on the car.

My tires were at 42 psi while the recommendation at my tire size and passenger/weight load was 36 psi (front) and 33 psi (rear). If anything, it improved the ride a touch.

Ed Moriarity

My C450 is at the dealers for another cracked rim. I paid for the tire and rim warranty, and it is a good thing as this is rim number 5 cracked (19" AMG) (yes the replacement rim cracked too) and one tire to date was covered. The other three tires did not see 10k use but that's another matter.
So, I was in the process of replacing the crappy Continental run flats with Firestone Indies when the tire dealer alerted me to this latest crack. I have never experienced this in 30 years driving. What are these rims made of? Egg shells? I said to the dealer, what are the odds that one vehicle would experience this repeatedly - oh, you know its the road conditions . I appreciate the comments on this tread as I can see I am not alone here. I've called MB Canada, I've written to MB headquarters in Germany. No resolution. On the up side, I have had plenty of opportunity to test run other MB products as I've gone through a few dealer loaners. The E class is nice. I estimate my car has been at the dealers over 20 days this past year for this ongoing issue. I bought the car certified pre-owned with @25k on it in March 2018. Most of my driving is highway. I see this as a design issue. A cars wheels and tires should not be a confidence concern for a customer.

noah phatt

https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/owne...cid=spartandhp