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I only need to solve the "winter issue".
In my region I have to use winter tires from half November until half April or bring winter equipment onboard like chains.
Since my car has the 18" the only tires that I can mount are the Pirelli that are incredibly expensive.
Someone of you have ever used snow chains like spikes-spider on 18" wheels?
Find those 17 inch wheels and snow tires and get them mounted. Don't think those chain type devices are recommended for 18 inch wheels (or even 17 inch) on a Mini. I would go check with a Mini dealership on the chain question, just in case.
Or move to the US of A where you can run Summer tires on snow if you want. No snow tire rules that I know about, except for some of the passes in the Rocky mountains, the Sierra's of California and the Cascades in the Northwest. There may be others.
We see many accidents here in Maine every time it snows because drivers think they are saving so much money by not purchasing a set of Winter tires. In reality, the highway department is forced to use incredible amounts of corrosive salts and other chemicals to melt the snow from roads. These products quickly eat the car from the bottom up causing these same people to have to purchase a car much more frequently or try to keep it and repair (Molti Soldi!) until the rust is too widespread to pass a safety inspection.
I've lived in Maine 21 years now, and have always been able to purchase a cheap "Winter car" to sacrifice to the Salt Gods. I'm now on my 3rd, not counting my 18 year old pickup truck that was sold for parts, because the rust had finally made it financially prohibitive to repair. I'm pretty fanatic about keeping these cars clean and try to make sure that the salt is off the car as much as possible, but these salts are so corrosive, that you can only fend off the rust for so long.
My wife's and my daily drivers last many more years using this expensive formula, but at least I'm not driving a pitted rust bucket year round. Our Mini hibernates most of the Winter, although today, even below zero Fahrenheit (it was -7.5 degrees F this morning, -22 C) it will go out for a few errands, since our roads are clean and dry and the sun is out.
Do you get that much snow in Balogna, Italy? It's at a fairly low elevation of 54 meters.
Maybe global warming will eventually take care of that problem for us all!
The snow it's not a problem.. we can have snowfalls twice a year and also the temperatures are not so low (the average is around 35°F).
So I need the snow chains only for legal requirements..
Of course winter tires are the best choice for several reasons.
Own a car in Italy is extremely expensive due to taxes, assurance costs and normal running (gas, etc.), so for us is already a miracle to have one
Anyway, sooner or later I'll move to USA, at least for a working experience.
I had the opportunity to travel around 4 times and I love the USA...
An aspect that you have to consider is that here in Italy a car with more than 4 years is considered OLD, and a CAR with more than 60000 miles is almost impossible to sell at a reasonable price.
So I never had a car with rust problems.
