I’m in the market for a set of rims to use for mounting winter snow tires. I have a 2021F57 JCW and I know there is something peculiar about the rim size to clear the brake calipers. My current stock rims are 17 inch. When I am looking at used 17” mini rims, what should I pay attention to? Thank you.

 

If you're looking at Mini rims, I'm fairly sure only the JCW rims will clear the big brakes.

Neuspeed makes a lightweight aftermarket wheel that will clear the JCW brakes, but they're around $1k for a set.

You may be able to find some other aftermarket rims that will work, but it's hard to guarantee they'll clear.

The other option is to install spacers, and then you should have more options for Mini rims but you'll still have to experiment to see what fits and what doesn't.

Someone more knowledgeable than me may know specific Mini wheels that will work.

 

If I were you, I would keep the OEM rims for winter use, and get a nice set of lightweight 18s for summer use.

 

I second this idea.

 

Tire Rack has cheap alloy rims. Use their "shop by vehicle" search to find wheels and tires that fit your specific car. If you buy a wheel and tire package they will mount and balance and you'll get them ready to go.

 

I'm in the same boat with my new-to-me 2017 JCW. I have a thread right now with my fitting of inexpensive JCW "clones".

I was looking at ECS, they do sell OEM JCW wheels but they are like $450 each or something like that.
They had cup spoke clones by their house brand Alzor on sale for $450/set - the catch there being that they aren't true clones. Backspacing is 45mm and I figured I'd have to run spacers to clear the spokes - I am trying out a set of 10mm spacers this weekend to see how they fit. If you are looking for a budget option, find my thread and in a couple days you can see how that budget option works out for my swappable second set of wheels.

You can find spacer sets on ebay that have longer stud bolts for about $100, lots of people run wheels with spacers to clear JCW brakes on this forum - many of those threads they'll have details on the wheels and spacers.

I also recall stumbling across a thread on this forum, I haven't found it again, but it was some "list of wheels" that fit the JCW without spacers. It wasn't a huge list, I didn't save it because it didn't sound fun to find wheel availability/buying info on a one-by-one Google search basis, but there is a thread somewhere in here - I'm guessing it's in JCW Garage or the Wheels and Tires section.

 

I tried that route as well- I was searching for 18s and they had one model with an ET47 offset and just a handful with ET45. Nothing near the ET56 of the factory offset.

More importantly, they don't necessarily have wheels that TRULY fit the car. The unusual aspect with our cars is the distance the brakes protrude forward from the mounting surface. Since there's no real spec or measurement in general (therefore also not in their database) for that particular clearance, I would NOT trust that their "shop by vehicle" does anything more than any other wheel search, meaning the vertical clearance of the brakes, not the horizontal protrusion distance to the backside of the spokes.

Granted, I suppose you could run spacers like what I'm doing with the Alzor clones if they arrived and didn't clear. And you might get lucky.
But also, with the snow tires splashing up winter slop, I'm using my OEM wheels for my snow tires, to ensure they are fully inside my wheelwells (also because two were curbed by a previous owner). Then these new wheels with my summer tires I am hoping will just be more flush, and not pokey-outey - but that's what my current thread is for figuring out.