I have a tire issue. It stems from the fact that when I picked up my MCS in April, it came with the wrong wheels (s-winders instead of bridge spokes). I had to take back a couple weeks later to switch the wheels.

So I've been driving on these bridge spokes for 6 months and 7,000 miles and today I was doing some research about tires on TireRack.com and noticed that the Goodyear Excellence tires that came on my the bridge spokes are not all-season, which is what we ordered. (The original s-winders had a Dunlop tire, which appear to be all-season.) I should have noticed this at the time or at least sooner, but I'm nothing close to an expert on tires.

I have 2 areas that I'd love to hear from NAM about:
1. Are these Goodyear tires really not all-season?
2. Since my original order was for all-season tires on bridge spokes, do I have a case to get the dealer to give me that now after 7,000 miles?

 

If thats what you ordered thats what you should have gotten. Having driven on them so long wont help, but i would certainly bring it up with the dealer. maybe they still have the s-winders laying around with the all seasons that you can switch. You should have checked once they already messed it up once, but you have a good position to complain they were the ones that messed up. I wouldn't think the tires will be great in the snow, ones that aren't rated for the snow rarely are.

 

So, here's some interesting info:

I bought a set of take-off wheels and tires from the local MINI dealer because I wanted some all-season tires to get me through our (light) winter months.

The Bridge Spokes I bought had Goodyear Excellence RunFlat tires mounted, which the MA claimed were all-seasons. I eyed them up, and decided they weren't really like other all-season tires I'd seen; so we looked them up online before I took the tires home.

The verdict?

TireRack's site said they were Grand Touring All Season tires, but there are no "reader survey" results because the tire is so new. Hmm. I trust TireRack, but the distinct lack of real world ratings gave me reason for pause.

Goodyear's site didn't offer any similar kind of classification system, so it was difficult to tell if they were intended to be all-seasons or not.

So, I took the MA's advice (and the fact that MINI qualifies the Excellence tire as one of their "all-season" choices) as well as TireRack's classification as evidence enough for me. I bought the wheels, tossed them in back of the MC, and drove 40mi home.

A couple of weeks later, with the wheels still comfortably stowed in the garage, I decided to do a little more digging around online to see if I could verify the tire's intended classification. Long story short, I ended up sending mail to both Goodyear and to TireRack.

Here's what they said, independent of one another:

Goodyear said, basically, "Heck no! Those tires received a snow rating of 2 out of 10. They're summer tires." Clearly I'm paraphrasing, but that's the gist of it.

TireRack said, "Oh, whoops. We took a closer look at the actual tire and decided to change the classification from Grand Touring All Season to Grand Touring Summer." Again, paraphrasing, but that's basically it.

Sooo, the Goodyear Excellence is definitely NOT an all-season tire.

It's a bit of a bummer to go through the hassle, but rather than fuss with the dealer, I just sold the wheel set (no $ loss) and plan to go another route.

Good luck.

 

Very interesting, fbox. About when did all this happen to you?

 

This is all in the last month or so. I still have the emails from both Goodyear and TireRack.

 

If you get 16" all seasons on your mini it will come with the Continentals, not the Goodyears. The Goodyears are what you get if you order "performance" tires. I ordered all seasons because I took delivery in the winter (on a snowy day no less) and I got Contis.

 

FWIW, my MA claimed that both the Goodyear Excellence and the Contis qualify as their all-season tire options for 16"; buyers get one or the other depending on what's "in stock" at the factory at the time of the build.

 

Tirerack is clear on the web site now that the tires shouldn't be in the snow so I'm going to have to get different ones. Guess I'll get in touch with the dealer and see if they're willing to fix their mistake from long ago.

Anyone else have this experience?

 

For about $600 you could get yourself an extra set of wheels. You'd have a set for summer and a set for winter.

 

I bought a second pair of tires back in May from another new owner. My factory wheels came with Continental all-season tires. The second set were performance tires from Dunlop. Both sets are 16-inch.

 

Good idea. I've been watching the For Sale board to see if anything pops up in the all-season category with wheels attached.

 

So what about 15 inch?........same thing hold true?

 

I don't think 15" will fit on an MCS. Which "same thing" were you thinking of?

 

Now that Lava mentions it, my first set of wheels might have had the Contis on them. The weather has turned cold here in the mountains so I have to get ready for some snow.