I need something with better grip. The plastic just ain't cutting it any more.

 

Bump. I also would like to find a steering wheel wrap - leather or better yet, suede or alcantara. A DIY item for my 2003 MCS 2 spoke. something that makes the wheel fatter and grippier.

Anyone

 

I don't the answer to this, but what is the diamater of the steering wheel??

 

Click over to www.minspeed.net

Has some options with wrapping, and carbon fiber. Location is in sunny south Florida.
Great experience with Peter. Good luck!

Tommy

 

Check with Pete at Minspeed:
http://www.minspeed.net/products.php?cat=10&pg=5

Smoothy58

 

Yep. Pete with Minspeed is the way to go.

 

For a cheaper solution, look into getting some driving gloves.

 

Pete charges $350 to buy the cover sewn on, but sells it for $40 if you sew it on yourself. Quality gloves aren't going to be any less. Plan on it taking a day or two to sew on. It's a great DIY project.

 

I'm quite fond of my cover from wheelskins.com - it's not the totally custom fit of the minspeed one - which is definitely super nice - but you do have lots of color options, etc. with the wheelskins. They have the size specifically for our wheels, and they fit great.

 

It does look and feel like plastic, but MINI claims that the stock 3-spoke wheel is leather.

 

Ahhh, my wheel is leather, and it's stock (2-spoke)... Do you honestly have a plastic wheel?

-Cody

 

I don't have a MINI yet but I've had a wheelskins.com cover on my Beetle for eight years and still really like it.

 

My driving gloves were only $15.

They look like this

but with a metal snap instead of velcro.

 

Cool gloves! Do you have the rest of the outfit to match?


jk, my friend.

I have a pair of those, too. And do NOT have the rest of the outfit.

 

Well, my hands are kind of big and I have long fingers. I have yet to find a pair of fingered gloves that actually fit. The big and tall stores only yeild gloves that are insanly wide and made for someone with fingers 2x the diameter of mine. These fingerless gloves give me full range of motion and provide grip while maintaining comfort. I usually get hand cramps in fingered gloves because I cannot use my fingers full range.

 

I found a company that makes custom fit gloves to your exact palm circumference and hand outline here: www.fulldaytouring.com/gloves.html
Made in the USA.

 

I thought my wheel was plastic also, but while putting on my cover I found that it's actually a leather cover which has been so excessively treated that it only feels (and looks) like plastic.



Blimey, that was hilarious

 

The truly frightening thing is that was what I IMMEDIATELY thought of when I saw the gloves... 15 seconds later and google had found the image for me... that's terrifying...

 

The funny thing is when I started the hunt for a wheel cover the only one I found made for my Mini wheel was Wheelskins. I wanted to buy it, but wasn't sure if they were any good and I didn't want risk $40 to find out it was crap. With Minspeed, even though I hadn't seen one before, I knew the quality of the retailer and felt much less risk. Back at that time frame, if Blimey had responded to my inquiries regarding Wheelskins, I'm sure I'd have bought one.

 

$40 for a full cover (covers the spokes as well) is an excellent deal! Plus it's one piece. I did my own custom cover before and it wasn't cheap; leather was about $25/sq-ft. It took some time to measure and dry fit (leather would stretch and move around on the wheel when you dry fit), and if you cut it wrong, that's money down the drain. The hardest part is "lacing" the cover on the wheel, very labor intensive. I think it took me 6 hrs just to lace up the cover because you have to constantly adjust the cover to make sure it's on straight.

 

Eh? My apologies if I missed something - I'm usually over-responsive.
Not quite sure how/where you inquired or how I missed it... unless it was during the two weeks I was off the grid on vacation...

 

minspeed can do any color you want.

 

Not a problem, I couldn't be happier with my wheel as things turned out. Not sure why/how you missed it, I posted back in November . I was pretty surprised when the recent thread came up to find out you had one and liked it though.

 

Ahhh... it was just a new thread - not a PM to me or a post on one of my existing threads - got it... some days I miss some of the new stuff... especially ones that get no other replies... if I don't see it the first time I do "New Posts"... then it never reappears (I almost never browse the forums... just watch the new post activity and my existing subscriptions)...

I'm relieved I didn't ignore a PM or something.

 

No worries