Blame it on Mr Mlabateki, the grade 11 teacher who taught business economics and English at Daliwonga in the Nineties.
He was the king of chic. Perpetually well dressed, articulate and one over whom the teenage girls in our class swooned. He also drove a BMW Matchbox. Apparently that model has another, ‘real†name.
In the streets, the Kabasa criminal gang was big. They too were the ultimate cool in a manner that gangsters sometimes become. They drove, or some say they stole, only BMWs. Once in a while they would arrive at the Maponya supermarket area, buy some Captain Dorego fish and chips, then throw a leather coat over the bonnet on which they would spill the food and eat it.
For the rest of us, perhaps in less dramatic ways than the Kabasas, the BMW has always been more than a car. It was a symbol of freedom. Boere moet wag (Boere must wait) we said, meaning that white oppression and racism had to stop somewhere and driving that beautiful German creation was a sign of where the otherwise insidious control of our lives should end.
All of which brings us to the subject for today–the run-flat tyres that BMW has introduced as standard on their latest offerings.
I was unpleasantly surprised when my wife called me from the middle of nowhere–between Krugersdorp and Magaliesburg–to say the tyre of our BMW 320 diesel was damaged and needed immediate attention.
Sure she could drive 100km more at 80kph without any further damage, but the schlep was that it was a Saturday afternoon and Magaliesburg is not exactly replete with tyre sellers and fitment centres.
BMW services told us the closest a tyre could be found was in Pretoria. The option was to get the car towed to the fitment centres they mentioned or for me, who was left behind in Jo’burg because I had other things to do there, to shop around trying to buy a new tyre.
But even then the guy at my nearest BMW dealer had to phone furiously to find a dealership that had the tyre I sought.
When it was eventually found–at R2 500 a pop–one then had to make a dash for Magaliesburg.
The owner of the local tyre-fitment centre was willing to extend his trading hours by an extra 30minutes. Apparently one cannot simply jack up the car, pull out the offending tyre and replace it. One needs a technically trained person to do that.
It was set to be a long, arduous drive, considering that I was driving one of those overrated British jalopies (a Jaguar) whose best attribute is their boot size.
The background was meant to dispel any notions about BMW drivers being inherently elitist and should therefore have known that their replacement tyres would cost a minimum of R2 500. They are for some of us a political and a cultural phenomenon.
BMW may well deserve to swallow their pride and consider whether the run-flat tyres are the best option for our country where the infrastructure is not the same as the European capitals where they were first mooted and approved.
We don’t have a 24-hour option here. Some of our roads are treacherous and why should owners of these cars keep at least R2 500 in cash stashed where the spare wheel would ordinarily be?
The sales team at the dealership is put in an untenable position when they cannot or will not tell the buyer about the possible shortcomings of this bright idea of not having to stop on account of a ‘mere punctureâ€.
Nobody is saying that run-flats are an absolute waste of time. It is truly comforting to know that the chances of a tyre bursting and subsequent accidents are almost nullified by this technology.
But even as a mere driver who could not be bothered about things like torque or the many alphabets and numbers that car geeks like comparing, I am not fully convinced that the merits of these tyres outstrip their demerits.
Some of us have come too far with this brand to give it up now. We hear some motoring editors say nasty things about the new 3-Series range, but we forgive them and hope that they too shall see the light one day.