I'm getting ready to swap out all four tires on my '05 Cooper. I wanted to see if anybody had real world experience with or opinions about the Avid ENVIgor vs. the ContiProContact. I've only ever had the OEM Contis and the ENVIgors looks intriguing. Tirerack rates them virtually the same. I'm way more concerned with steering response than ride/noise. Thanks in advance.

 

If you're talking about 15" tires, have you considered the 195/60-15 Sumitomo HTR A/S P01 (High Performance All-Season)?

 

Yeah, sorry, I should have mentioned that. I'm looking at 15" tires. I haven't, actually, but will do a little more research. Part of the reason I was looking at the previous two was that I have a credit at a local dealer who has the other two in stock, so it would bring down the cost quite a bit.

 

I have the Envigors on my car but they are 17" wheels. They are a decent all-around tire. The handling characteristics are pretty good but they are somewhat of a compromise of wet-weather versus pure handling. But not really that much of a compromise. I've had them about 12,000 miles and there is still a fair amount of tread. They are starting to get a little louder though.

 

I've had the Envigors 215/45/17 for just about 30k miles (increasing) and they are toast. While they are toast I did enjoy the them and think they were a good set of tires.
Let me explain

They were the first set of tires I got after the OEM tires went kaput at 27k
Sound levels and comfort were instantly an improvement, the ride was instantly less harsh and a few rattles and squeaks actually went away because of it.

MPG is good though it seemed like it dropped off 2-3 mpg at first but this could have been because they were switched on around the time the gas stations change to the Winter Gas blend in New England.
In the spring/summer I was still getting into the 30's but I also had a FMIC so my MPG claims may be a bit askew.

For handling they lacked the responsiveness of the OEM runflats purely because of the non-runflat side wall; But while pushing them I never felt that the side wall was too soft for the tire, it never felt like the side wall was rolling over on its self. I tracked them once and came away impressed with how they performed in that environment.

I am a firm believer that MINI uses the stiffer sidewall attribute of the run flats to trick the senses into thinking the car has sharper handling than the chassis actually does.
I could be wrong though, since these tires are marketed as a performance all season which is a compromise as I've heard, I've never driven on a real summer or performance tire but I have read they do make quite the difference.

Now that the tires are pretty much at or past the wear bars I am in the market for new tires and will most likely be getting an actual summer tire as I have been progressively moving toward higher performance.

With it being said that the tires are done for and I must say they are actually incredibly quiet for being worn so far down. Couple that with the fact that I took out my back seat and lost all of that sound deadening I am surprised how manageable the noise levels are.

I did not ride the OEM tires down this low and the noise was unbearable.
I was actually wearing 32db ear plugs on the highway!

Now they are suppose to be warrantied for 45K and I am going to collect on that but am unsure if the increased wear was attributed to the MINI's suspension set up or just my driving conditions; but I can say that I did drive the hell out of them from time to time and they performed well over the tires life.

I hope this helps your decision
Good luck

 

BMW made a bet on run-flats based on several tire companies' commitments to greatly improve them. It didn't happen and last I heard BMW was considering offering non-runflat options in Europe.

The base MINI with sport suspension on non-run flats is the best handling BMW I've owned over 40 years, and I drive it at the limit regularly during autocrosses. That and the M3 may be the only stock ultimate driving machines left.

 

I had the Avid ENVIgor in 175/65/R15. I'm no tire expert but I was generally pleased with them. I ran them pretty hard and they never let me down. We don't get much rain here so I can't speak to that. The biggest downside; I only got 25k miles out of them.