My wife and I set out on a trip from London to Lyon last Saturday (14 November) in our new BMW 320 Touring to have a birthday dinner with friends. Whilst on the autoroute between Calais and Reims, we experienced a blow out on the offside rear. All BMWs are now supplied as standard with 4 runflats and no spare so we had to limp some 30 kilometres to Lyon in search of a garage. Having visited three tyre depots without success, we resorted to phoning BMW Emergency Services in London who tried to find us a replacement tyre but again, no luck. Then, on Saturday afternoon, France closed down for the weekend and we had to have the car trailered to the nearest BMW dealer some 40 kilometres away in Soissons. BMW Emergency Services arranged a taxi to take us to Reims to pick up a hire car and booked a hotel for us in Troyes. We waited five days for a new tyre to be delivered and fitted (at 321 Euros, twice the cost in the UK) and we finally left for home on Wednesday afternoon. Needless to say we never made the party in Lyon. The moral of this story: the run flat probably saved our lives but that does not absolve BMW of their responsibility to make replacement tyres freely available. Surely they could use some of their substantial marketing budget to cajole the major tyre retailers to carry stocks rather than having to order from wholesalers. In the meantime, it would help if BMW dealerships held strategic stocks of runflats until they become more readily available. 10/10 for Sarah, Marie and team at BMW Emergency Services - nul points for BMW aftersales. Cost to BMW 1,000 euros - cost to us 321 euros and five days waiting for a new tyre! BMW drivers on the continent beware!