During a recent brake service at the dealer, I found out that at 32,000 miles the stock run-flats on my '09 cooper S are nearing the end of their life.

My wife, who is a doctor, is the primary driver of the mini and relies on it for her 25 mile commute to the hospital. This past winter was extraordinarily bad here in NY, and unlike many people who can take a snow day, she can't. She drove to work on some pretty terrible days, and although she made is safely, the mini w/ the stock run-flats didn't perform all that well. This has led to some pressure from family suggesting that we trade the mini in for an AWD or SUV, but I love the mini and this sounds like heresy to me.

I'm curious if our mini had snow tires on for this past winter, would it have performed as well as a small SUV (ground clearance issues aside).

Now that the run-flats need to be replaced soon, I am considering replacing them with either snow tires or a good set of all weather tires. Ideally, I'd like to put snow tires on the stock wheels and then purchase a second set of wheels for summer tires. However, money is a bit tight at the moment and that idea (2 sets of tires and a set of wheels) is likely to cost roughly $1500. Will snow tires be significantly better than a good set of all-season tires in the winter? Does purchasing two sets of tires make the mini a much safer car year round, or is this little more than a secret desire of mine to get some higher performance rubber on the car for summer months to the tune of an extra $1000? Convincing me that two sets of tires is worth while isn't going to be hard, but I'll need to convince my wife, which likely won't be as easy.

 

Yes simply put snow tires will make a world of difference compared to the run flats. Keep an eye here in the classifieds as wheels come up for sale quite often. Both summer and winter wheels. With a good set of snow tires my car was almost unstoppable in the snow.

 

Spend $500 instead of $20,000 and get a good set of snow tires. Click on my gallery to see pictures of how well the MINI does in the snow with proper tires (in my case, Falken Espia EPZ.) The photos are of me at the top of a long hill climb over unplowed, snowed out roads outside of city limits. The city was shut down but the MINI scooted around without any trouble.

 

Of course you won't go far with summer tyres in the snow...

Here, in the Great White North, snow tyres are mandatory from December to March. My clubby is so much fun in the snow. Get good summer tyres for the summer and good winter ones for the cold season. You won't regret it

As for ground clearance. Thats BS. My brother's Civic has less clearance than my Mini, and you don't see anyone stressing about driving one in the snow.