MINI Cooper's = New England Winter?
 

Allmost that time of the year, well a few more months. Should I start saving up for some winter tires and wheels?

I currently have the 17" OEM Runflat tires on my MCS. Has anyone expierenced them in the winter? How good are they in the slushy snow etc? I assume not so good. I live in CT so we will have some snow :impatient

I thought the 17" wheels came with performance tires, so they wouldn't work to well in the winter.

I heard that 15" will fit on the MCS, so I'm going to look for a set of those. Shouldn't be too expensive.

Anyone know where to get steelies? Tire Rack doesn't seem to have them for the Mini.

Steelies in 15" will not fit on your MCS. There are some 15" aftermarket wheels that will clear the brakes. 16" steelies should, but they say old OEM 16" MINI wheels might not fit the MCS so it should be fitted to the car.

In terms of Tires there is alot of good witners in that size. I got some Contientals for winter, just i need some wheels :P

ahhh I see what your saying in anycase the OEM TIRES wont be all that great in the winter right? Best to get some snows?

IDK about you, but the cost of winters is the same price as my insurance detucable and increases your ability x10 in the winter over all seasons. And overall your summers will last longer.

expect to get 3 seaons out of witners. depens on your milage.

I live in florida, so absolutely no reason for this...

But where do you Northern MINI Owners go to get the tires swapped out? and about how much does it cost?

I moved from LA to Boston a few years back (I'm back in LA now). First snow about 2" or so, I live in the city, work in 'burbs. Car is an Audi TT Quattro, summer tires. I try to stop, slide right through an intersection.

I turn around, go to tirerack.com, order some dunlop wintersports, and mount them on some cheapy 16" wheels.

The car was a champ after that, fully plowed through snow and stopped with non problem.

If you car has summer tires (ie performance tires), don't even think about them in the snow.

I get another set of wheels (16" steelies like above or somthing) and swap them out myself. Takes about 30 mins to do 4, if you have a hydraulic jack.

If you change tires onto rims every year and back it would cost you like 50$ each time, or 100$ a year. Pays off a new set of rims pretty quick.

I have 17" RFT All Season v. Performance
 

I live in New England, as well -- Boston area. Looks like I have the same color combo as you, too.

But, the dealer talked me into the all season instead of the performance. I have not noticed any problems at all in terms of performance on the dry pavement (Summer, and all). I'm waiting for that first snowfall....

As a native of Northern Maine
 

I would concur that you need to purchase a set of 16" alloys off of someone that has swapped out their stock wheels. You really don't want to chance it with even all-seasons given that the weather can be unpredictable.

My last MINI that made the trek to Northern Maine in the winter was an 05 MCS with 16" V-Spokes and all-season Pirelli P-Zero Neros - did pretty well in a few inches of snow, not so great in anything over 3" of snow.

If you're expecting a lot of snow this winter then consider dedicated snow tires - TireRack is great in helping you decide if you need a tire that is focused on a combination of snow and ice or mostly snow.

Here in Washington, we don't tend to get as much snow, so snow tires are a waste of money (unless you go skiing in PA), but we do get a lot of slush and ice. All-seasons are precarious at best on ice - but given that the local governments are pretty good about throwing down the chemicals ahead of the weather it's becoming less and less of an issue so I'll stick with the all-seasons this winter.

I'm in CT too, and I've ran the Dunlop WinterSport D3 runflat last year on 16" Bridge Spokes. Factory size, 195/55/16. They are absolutely unbelievabe in all conditions. Due to the run flat design, they maintain crisp turn-in feel, even more so than the 205/40/18 Michelin Pilot Sport 2s that I run in the summer. They have excellent grip in dry and wet conditons and are locked onto snowy roads. I was expecting great winter performance; I was not expecting them to be so good the rest of the time.....

I plan on getting a set of cheap rims with nice snow tires. Did it on my SRT-4 and was prolly the best "mod" I ever did.

Someone on this site is selling a set of 15" 2-holes from a Cooper. Those would make perfect winter wheels with some Blizzaks on them.

Been there done that... on two different SRT-4's...