What tyres should I order, looking for a good summer tire I live in Santa Cruz so have little amounts of rain.

Was thinking about either Michelin or yokahama, but will consider others if recommended

 

Not sure which specific Michelins or Yokos you are getting, they make hundreds of different types. There are other tires that are better and much cheaper than those though. May want to consider 215/40-17. Here are 3 of them:

Hankook Ventus V12EVO K110

Falken ZIEX ZE912

Nitto NeoGen

If you want near race tire grip then the Dunlop Direzza Sport Z1 Star Spec is the ticket, but they will wear faster too.

 

with Michelin PS2's--the "Porsche" variant if you look on TireRack. If you look carefully, that Porsche one is the lightest of the three (!) PS2 choices in 225's, and priced mid-pack. 225's fit fine on my 2010 MCS. If you are pre-2007 be careful though--from reading many posts on here, some say 225's have fitment issues. Since I don't and many don't bother to post the year of their MINI, I suspect its more a Gen 1 issue. The 225's cleaned up a lot of the speedo error issue and fill the wheel wells nicely too.

I live on the Peninsula (Bay Area) BTW so know a summer tire like the Michelin works here all year round. PS2's are a HUGE upgrade over the Dunlop runflat summers the car came with (and which outrageously cost twice as much!)--quieter, way smoother, stick like glue... Have them on my (450HP) Audi too.

 

Star Specs are fantastic, I've had mine on my car for 25k miles. They're cheap and still have decent grip and maybe a couple k left. Awesome grip when new.

Rotated 3x times and have mods, but don't burnout or track the car.

 

Try the Kumho SPT in that size (215 45 17). I'm on my third set, they

stick good, wet or dry and are priced right (the last set I bought were

$84.00 per from the Tirerack).