My girlfriends mother has a 05 Red cooper. She took it to MAG for something or other and they told her she needs 4 new tires. She has runflats but does not want to replace them with runflats because they quoted her 1000 bucks or something. Can you guys reccomend a place to get tires (also installed) and what kinda tires you would get for a typical daily driver. nothing fancy here at all. Also, are the rims for runflats any different then regular rims? So a run of the mill tireshop would have problems?

Thanks,

Dan

 

Rims are rims, get some non-runflats on there and you will be fine. In the past I have had good luck with discount tire. They are all over the city and will balance and rotate your tires as long as you own the car. My parents jsut recently ran through two tires on the front of there solara( maybe 20k) and discount replaced them both for free.

 

I got a quote from the NTB over off Sawmill (the one you can see from 270) of like half that for non-run flats. I ended up just getting a whole new set of barely-used X-lite rims w/ all-season tires on them for like $400, though, so I ended up going that way. Honestly, if you're talking standard tires on a daily driver that's not pushed too hard, I'd think that any tire and battery place can get her set up for a fraction of the cost of a dealership run-flat job.

Of course, since the Cooper doesn't have a spare lots of times (I know that some do - does hers?), I'd recommend using run-flats if you can afford them, simply for peace of mind. If she has a spare in her car, though, then there's not a lot of reason to pay the premium for run-flats IMHO. Depends on how risk-tolerent she is, I guess.

 

I have 06 MCS, the run flats (Dunlop 9000's) on the rear were wearing badly on the inside after only 15,000 miles.

I bought new tyres from Discount Tyre, BF Goodrich G-Force, I went with a slighter bigger tyre... 215/45 17", they are GREAT, just love how much smoother Bertha rides.
They quoted me $106 per tyre. I told them that I could buy them from Tyre Rack for $92... so they matched the price. With four new tyres, install, and WARRANTY (most other places don't offer warranty on performance tyres) the total was $570, which I thought was pretty awesome considering the price of the run flats.

Can you detail what tyres on on the car already?

I bought a Slime package for 'just in case' scenarios (because I don't have a spare tyre), cost $20 from Walmart and includes the compressor.

 

Actually, I think the Coopers do have a spare, only the MCS do not have them.

As for tire recomendations, Kuhmos seem to be a popular choice. They will wear quickly, 35k, but they are generally inexpensive.

 

Thanks for the help. We checked and hers does have a spare. I will tell her that any run of the mill tire place will work for her. BTW I think since being at MAG she really liked the 07s and could be putting her red/white cooper up for sale with 23k miles. I know you talked about getting a red cooper sir.


but I am guessing it's just a pipe dream of hers right now.

Dan

edit: I'm not sure what tires are on the car now, whatever runflat comes stock?

 

Any Goodyear Tire Store can handle the runflats OK, they are experts at mounting runflats (not all tire shops have runflat experience, check first). I have runflats on my MINI and would love to switch to regular tires, however, with my wife driving 50 miles to work, she loves the peace of mind of the runflats, perhaps your girlfriend's mother feels the same.

 

Say away from the goodyear at sawmill and powell if you go that route.

 

Dan, I've had very good luck with Discount tire. I've bought tires at 3 different location & was treated well at all. There is one on Mill Run in Hilliard. As for what tires I'd say a set of KUMHO ECSTA AST in a 205-50-16 size would fit the bill nicely. They are an all season tire that should work well on her Cooper. Tire Rack sells them for $58 each. Discount tire will match Tire Racks prices.