I thought you might be interested in my saga with BMW and tyre replacement. I am the owner of a BMW X3, factory fitted with runflat tyres type Pirelli P Zero 275/40 R19 101Y, purchased from BMW Park Lane in October 2011. The car has less than 7000 miles on the clock. It is still under guarantee.

On 27 May I had a puncture en route to Essex. I continued to my destination – about 12 miles. The following morning, 28 May, I contacted BMW Emergency Assist who had my car taken to the nearest BMW dealers and provided me with a hire car for two days. From then onwards it has become a marathon journey. Initially, I was told it would take a couple of days for a new tyre. Then I was told it would take five days to get a tyre as there were none in the UK and it would have to come from Germany. However, I would have to return the rental car as it was only provided for a maximum of two days for a puncture.

I contacted BMW Customer Services who said the same thing. I was then told that it was unlikely that I would get the tyre before the weekend and, as it was a long weekend, there would be nothing before 6 June. No courtesy car was available either. I was stuck as I was due to go away during the weekend. On 7 June nobody had contacted me to provide an update, so I rang the dealers who said that now the delay was between 10-15 days for spares to come from Germany. I asked why I hadn’t been informed of that at the outset and was told that normally spares in the UK were up to five days. This went on and on and on for 3 weeks.