I'm replacing my 195-55-16 OE Michelin Energy tires this weekend, and the guy at the tire shop mentioned that I could upsize to a more popular size of 205-55-16. It did drop the price some but I'm not sure if putting a bigger tire on a wheel is necessarily better. Someone take me to school here. Many thanks

 

For the OEM MINI 16x6.5" wheel you can use for street driving-

195/55-16 OEM, the only size for MINI runflats in 16", some good tires still come in this size. Tire diameter is 24.4"
All three are Ultra High Performance All Season tires- will work in cold/ light snow
Bridgestone Potenza RE960AS Runflat $141, 400 treadwear
General G-max AS-03 $93, 480 treadwear
Kumho Ecsta 4X $84, 420 treadwear

205/50-16, slightly less tall than OEM at 24.1"
Example-
Continental ExtremeContact DW (Max Summer tire) $84, 340 treadwear

205/55-16 is taller than OEM at 24.9"
Tire selection is large-
http://www.tirerack.com/tires/TireSe...55&diameter=16

The advantage with 205/55-16 is you have many choices and many good tires for a given budget, including good Grand Touring All Season tires which offer more ride comfort over crisp handling with longer treadlife. The sidewall is tall and offers slightly more comfort than OEM tires. If you have bad potholed roads this is a good size.

The downside with a taller tire is it will work well with stock suspension but will reduce clearance for any lowered suspension or wider than stock wheel.
A taller sidewall is also less crisp or responsive in handling or cornering.

Speedometer and odometer error is small about 2% faster/more than actual "OEM" speed/miles. Not enough to worry about.

Did you know tires for summer only or ones that you can use year round, even in cold or some snow?

Did you want to stick with runflats or change to nonrunflats?

Will this be for street use only or for any driving school or track events?

 

205/55-16 works. I think it looks a bit big, and somewhat truck like. You get a much bigger selection of tires in /55, usually I run 205/50-16, but I went to /55 to get the tire model I was interested in. This was only for our track tires (Bridgestone RE-11), but they worked fine when I had them on for the street. It did make the speedo accurate for once.

The /55 will change the gearing slightly, so you'll be running the engine slower at the same road speed. It'll also reduce the acceleration slightly. I found it worked very well for use on the track, it shifted the gearing enough so I could stay in third or fourth more.

 

I'll add that with the normal speedo error in MINIs, the error caused by the slightly larger tires ends up making the speedo more accurate. At least that has been the case for me and everyone I have seen post about it.

Been running 205/55/16 for close to 100k miles with no problems.