Just put on the winter Blizzak's and I must say, they really look O.K. with the steel wheels and covers. Now, where should I keep the spare?? In the boot? On the rear seat? On top of the fold down? Don't carry one at all?
Any ideas? B.D.

 

(love the title of this thread! )

B.D., which set of wheel covers did you choose? Any pictures? IMO they're all pretty funky looking and represent the only downside of the steel wheel solution. Last year I ended up leaving the covers off altogether and just using the black painted wheels. But this year, the wheels have surface rust and look awful...so I'm back to some covers.

To answer your question, I've chosen to forego the spare and carry a can of fixaflat. The Blizzaks are inexpensive enough that if I needed to trash a tire, I wouldn't lose too much sleep. There's always roadside assistance too. I decided NOT to go with the donut spare since I'm not too keen on having it possibly turn into a hazard in the event of an accident. There's not really a good way to tie it down securely in the boot.

 

>>Just put on the winter Blizzak's and I must say, they really look O.K. with the steel wheels and covers. Now, where should I keep the spare?? In the boot? On the rear seat? On top of the fold down? Don't carry one at all?
>> Any ideas? B.D.

I have Yokohama ave es100s and do not carry a spare. I got the tires and wheels at Discount Tire and they have stores all over the place so I'm not worried.

Earl

 

The fix a flat seems like a good idea, I'll buy me can and spare the spare. The wheel covers appeared O.K. at first but after seeing them from a distance they seemed a little cheap. No pic at the moment but you can visit the Tire Rack and look at the 15" covers, only two to choose from. I was thinking about painting them black to match the wheels or just leaving them off all together. Funny, just had a thought about the pressure sensors in the runflats. Why didn't my pressure warning light come on since the tires are relatively some distance from the car. You would think that the transmitters signal not being able to reach the consol would affect the warning light. Any ideas here?
B.D.

 

It uses the ABS sensors to detect differences in rotation between the wheels not sensors in the wheels.

I have fix a flat freeze in the winter. Luckily I didn't need it, but it sounded like it was full of Slurpy.

You might want to pack a tire plug kit just in case.

 

The MINI doesn't use individual pressure sensors on each wheel to detect a flat. The system on the MINI uses data from the ABS system, specifically the rotation rates of each wheel to determine if a tire is low. The idea is that a tire that is low has a slightly smaller circumference than a properly inflated tire and so will revolve at a slightly different rate than the other tires. This is also why on the early cars, if you spun your tires on wet pavement, you could sometimes get a false low tire warning. This is also why they want you to replace tires in sets of four! (Plus they get to sell more tires that way. )

 

Now I understand, Thanks