It looks like Discount Tire is a distributor for Beyern wheels, so I'd just do some research, print out your best price on the wheels, and the same with the tires, and they should match your best price.

As far as installing the springs, I guess getting a quote at the BMW shop you mentioned is a good place to start. The rear R60 struts pop right out with only three bolts to remove, it literally took me about 60 seconds to remove a rear strut once the wheel is off, so the labor on the rears shouldn't be much. Unfortunately, a shop is probably going to charge you about 3 hours labor to install the springs, times whatever their hourly rate is.

There is a sheet of paper in the box with the springs that shows how to cut the foam bumpstops. Make sure whoever is installing the springs has that, is has to be done.


R60 center caps are the same size as the the rest of the MINIs. The BMW size cap is larger. Post a pic when you do it, I'm interested in changing our caps to the MINI logo as well.

 

Will do. FYI the region your in also matters how much they will charge. In SoCal everyone for $200 is norm. In Seattle no one cheaper than $400z lame IMO but the truth

 

Cool. Thanks for the information, MotoGreg. NM has offered to install the springs for me when I go up for my tune, so maybe I'll just let them do it, especially if I can slap the wheels on there without an alignment.

Are you sure they are all the same? I get the impression there are several different sizes.

Questions:

1) Do I need to buy the hardware for the TPMS for the new wheels?

2) How about lug nuts? Do they come with the wheels, will my old ones work, or do I just buy new ones?

3) Since the Beyern Bevaria is a 8.5" wheel, would a 235 tire width still work or should I go wider?

Can you tell I have never bought aftermarket wheels in my life?

 

^
1) Depending on where you get the wheels from, if you're buying the tires from them together, see if they can also install TPMS sensors for you so you don't have to mount them more than once.

2) Depends on the seat of the wheel's stud openings. Logically I would think if it's a BMW wheel, I think the seat and bolts of the BMW/Mini wheel is the same, so you shouldn't have to get new lugs. Check with whoever you buy them from, if it's a knowledgeable place, they should be able to answer these questions for you easily.

3) 235 is probably more ideal on an 8.5" wheel, but 245 is also fine. i think 255 would be the widest you can go, but I wouldn't think that's a good idea.

Yes

 

Thanks, Shoof. I haven't given you enough praise; you've been helpful too, and I appreciate it.

* * *

Best prices I've found so far:

$312 from Discount Tire

$312 from Element Wheels.com

$272 from a seller on eBay

Could of sworn there was a place selling them for $309, but can't find it again. Not sure if the eBay seller is trustworthy or not, but that would obviously be the best deal.

Regarding center caps, I am thinking these will be perfect (assuming they fit):

 

If they'll install your springs for free then by all means take them up on that and save yourself a few hundred bucks!

1. The TPMS sensor is built into the valve stem, that one nut around the stem is what fastens it to the wheel. When you get your wheels/tires installed they'll remove the TPMS sensors off of your stock wheels and put them on the new wheels. You don't need to buy anything.

2. Like Shoof said, a wheel designed for BMWs should certainly accept the stock BMW/MINI lug bolts.

3. If the tire you want is available in 245/40/19 then that is optimum. Here is the tire you were interested in... click here Now click on the tab that says "specs" below the photo of the tire. The is a column called "measured rim width" and that is an industry standard that dictates the width of a rim that a tire must be mounted on for testing. For a 245 width tire the "measured rim width" is 8.5" and for 225 it is an 8" rim. A 235 then would obviously be ideal for an 8.25" wide rim, if there were such a thing.

Obviously you can use a 235/40/19 with no problem what so ever, but 245 is the optimum size for an 8.5" rim. And besides, why would you want a skinnier tire with less traction anyway? That's the whole point of high performance tires, to get more traction.

MINI wheels (including the R60) have 55mm center caps.
BMW wheels have 68mm center caps.
I would assume that the Beyern wheels would accept the standard 68mm BMW caps, but there's a chance they could be some other random size, like maybe a size TSW uses on every wheel they make.

The eBay seller for the wheels has a ton of great feedback. They have free shipping and no sales tax, sounds good to me.

EDIT: I forgot to add something... Some tire shops, usually large chains, won't install non-runflat tires on a car that came with runflats. So make sure to ask them first, before buying tires from them.

 

My thoughts (and Jerry's point) exactly.

Good to know, thanks.

Sounds good. Any reason I should go with a locking lug, or no?

I looks like the recommended rim width for both the 235 and 245 is 8.5". (Interestingly, the tread width for the 245 is listed at 9" while the 235 is listed at 9.2". Misprint?)

But to answer your question, I was looking at the best compromise between width/traction and mileage. I commute round trip about +70 miles a day, but I like to have fun doing it and on the weekends. So finding a balance between mileage and performance is somewhat of a concern. If the effect on mileage between a 235 and 245 is negligible, then I suppose 245 it will be.

I'll dig into it a bit more and will report anything I find.

I tend to agree. That's what I'll probably end up doing.

Good point. That much I already knew. My recollection from the previous threads I've read on the subject is that Discount Tire doesn't care. I'll have to re-read that before I have Tire Rack ship my tires off to them!

 

I know, I was trying to explain that earlier, here...

Since there is no such thing as 8.25" wide rims, they mandate that that size tire be tested on an 8.5" rim instead.

In the real world, you wouldn't really see a difference in mileage. But to be technical, the 245 has a slightly larger diameter. That means the car travels slightly farther for each RPM of the engine than it would with the 235 tire... which means the MPG would be slightly higher with the 245 tire. But again, the difference is very slight, it may end up being something like 1/3 of a MPG or something like that. Really, I see no reason at all to go with 235, unless there was some kind of great sale on those or something and you saved money vs. the 245.

 

I got a new iPhone app that I was playing around with at lunch. Here is your setup Hujan...

<P><P><P>

By law, car manufacturers have to make speedos read high (so people drive slower). Usually they're about 3% high based on what I see when I drive a car at work with the test equipment hooked up. So this should make your speedo pretty accurate now.

 

Wow, that app is awesome, Greg! Where did you find that?

Only one problem: My stock setup is 225/45/18. From my calcs, this makes the difference even closer, something on the order of 2.7% maybe?

I am not as worried about the speedo as I am about the performance. But if you are fairly confident that MPG won't suffer to a real perceptible degree, and that I won't notice a drop off in other measurables (e.g., torque loss from the taller wheels), then I see no reason not to go 245/40/19. Those tires are actually cheaper than the 235/40/19, as well.

 

Here it is with the 225/45/18. No real differences, just a very slight change. We are really talking about negligible differences here. Like I said before, you won't notice any change in mileage or acceleration. Well, it may feel ever so very slightly better on acceleration if the wheels are considerably lighter than the old ones like they claim they are.

You should be able to sell your 18s pretty easily to someone who wants to upgrade from the standard 17s.

This is the app... http://wheelappplus.com/

 

Cool, thanks for the info and reassurance. Guess that settles that, then.

My OEM Pirelli run flats are 29 lbs. per tire, whereas the Michelin PSS in 245/40/19 are 25 lbs. per tire.

I don't know the weight of the OEM 18" turbofans but I am guessing they are closer to 30 lbs. than the 21 lbs. that the Beyern Bavaria's are said to weigh. So, all told, probably a ~50 lb. reduction in rotating weight. Not too shabby.

Good thinking. The tires have <1,000 miles on them, and I've been driving relatively well mannered since I'm not yet used to the car and still scared to death to hurt it.

 

I sold my 17s with the tires & TPMS sensors for $800 and I probably could have held out for more, but I sold them quick on the first day, to the first person to answer my ad. 18s go for more money though.

 

I'll sell my combo for 800 including tpms 18 turbos here!!

 

MotoGreg, you mentioned above that there'a law that car manufacturers are required to make speedos read high. One of my friends (and several others) were significantly injured in a car accident, one of the drivers is claiming that his speedometer was inaccurate, and there are potential lawsuits flying all over the place as a result. I won't bother going into all the details, but such a law would be very significant to the case. We need to find out more about this law. My friend and I spoke showed your post to her attorney last night, and the attorney had never heard of this law. Also, my cousin is an engineer for the parent company of Stewart Warner (one of the largest manufacturers of gauges for both OEM and aftermarket), and we traded emails on this overnight. He also said he has never heard of this, and of course wants to know more asap. Can you please tell us where you heard of this? Thanks.

 

Shame you already picked out some wheels Hujan! I have a set of real wheels. 3 pc forged, 19's that would fit your budget nicely, and you will never see them on another Countryman, ever, let alone probably never see them on another car, even!!!!


This statement is patently false MotoGreg! I have a set of 8.25" wheels on my '11 WRX, right now!

 

Tell your friends' attorney that the other driver's speedometer would have to be wildly inaccurate to make a causative difference in the case. The manufacturer-imposed variance to which MotoGreg was referring was only a slight variance (i.e., 3%). In real world terms, a 3% disparity means something like 2 mph difference. The stopping distance, impact force, or any relevant metric in your friends' case probably is not going to be made meaningfully different if the speedometer was off by 3%.

Note also that MotoGreg is referring to a variance that would cut the other way: That is, the manufacturer sets the speedo so that when it reads "60 mph" the driver is actually going 58 mph. This would seem to prevent any "I didn't know how fast I was going" excuse. In fact, it would be a "I didn't know how slow I was going" excuse.

And if it is off by more than 3% in such a way that it is causing the speed to read too slow, then it would likely be because the driver did something to the car, in which case he knew or should have known that it would under report his actual speed by a significant margin.

 

Hey! No swooping! Start your own thread!

 

Hmmm. You got pics? How much do they weigh? Dimensions, etc.?

 

You think car speedos read high? They're nothing compared to bikes. My Ducati reads 7.6% high according to GPS and I had to get an electrical doohicky to adjust it.

Hjuan did a great job of explaining it.

Speedos are not allowed to read low (so you're traveling faster than it shows) at all. None. If it's even the slightest bit low there are big fines for car makers. Just to be on the safe side, because even a change in tire brand can be enough to skew it just slightly, they make them read a few percent high. Not enough to really effect anything, just a small cushion so that it won't read low. If you make them dead on accurate, and say your tire supplier makes a very slight change to their tires, and now your speedo reads .01% low then you've got the potential for a big fine... so there always has to be a built in cushion to allow for these things. When I'm driving a car with our test equipment hooked up, and I can see the true speed that the ECU sees, when the car is going an actual 60 then the speedo will usually show 62.

I was in traffic court one time (one of the many times ) and while waiting for my case there was one ahead of me with where the driver claimed the ol' "well my speedo said I was going blah, blah, blah." The judge, who I'm sure had heard this not so clever or original excuse a thousand times, proceeded to inform her about the law, and you could tell he had given this speech a lot, probably on a daily basis I'm sure. Anyway, the judge said the speedo is merely a gauge, just like a tachometer or an engine temperature gauge, and it's there just to help you gauge what the car is doing. However, it is solely the drivers responsibility to control the car in all manner (including speed) and whether the speedo says 1mph or 100mph, or it's broken, or you have an old car that doesn't have a speedo... ultimately it's up to the driver to control the car. The speedo is there to assist you, but you don't relinquish your driving responsibility and allow the speedo to dictate what you do. If you're driving down the freeway and it says you're doing 10mph while you're obviously doing 65mph, you wouldn't keep speeding up until the speedo finally got up to 65mph would you? If your lawsuit happy friend was driving down the road and his left turn signal came on by itself, would he then just whip the steering wheel to the left? And then when it caused an accident claim it wasn't his fault because the turn signal malfunction told him to? See how asinine this all sounds?

 

Hujan, thanks, I understand what you are saying, but the case is much more complicated than that....would take about a page and a half to explain. Greg, can you direct us to the law you quoted (that car manufacturers are required to maker speedos read high). We can't find anything on this at all, and no one at my cousin's company had ever heard of this, whether it be in the U.S., or any other country. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

When I drive my Mini or Lotus with my TomTom GPS connected, at 70mph, both speedo's are off by a good 4-5mph, reading 65-66mph according to the speed recorded on the GPS.

When I drive a Honda, the speed on the gauge is pretty accurate to what the GPS speed is showing, so 70mph in the car is showing 69-70mph on the GPS. Greg, you said you work for Honda, I'd be surprised at your findings of Honda's speedo being off when I'm finding the opposite of what you say..

 

I'm in love....

 

Unless the NM Eng wheels are forged, I would be quite careful if you have any king-size potholes in your area. Here in the MD/PA/NJ area, the roads suck and ultimate weight needs to be sacrificed to greater strength for durability. Smooth roads, no problem.

 

Agree, they are sweet. Here you go:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/19-OZ-SUPERT...ht_1965wt_1398

Just a bit outside my price range.