Just got a new set of wheels and was running them without center caps. Anyways, I noticed what looked like a bit of rust appearing on the newly exposed areas of the wheel hub beneath where the cap would fit. I've since put on some caps, but I'm wondering, is it ok to leave the caps off or is this rust a problem?

Thanks!

 

I frequently run without centercaps on my Mini wheels, both stock and aftermarket. There is a small amount of surface rust that sometimes forms, but I've never had any issues with it on the Mini or my.other cars that I do the same thing with,

 

The rust will appear whether you run center caps or not. I run steelies w/o caps every winter.

 

Just playing Devil's advocate here, but do you prefer the look of a hole in the center of your wheel, versus a cap of some sort?

If you're simply unhappy with the center caps that came with your aftermarket wheels, you could cover them up with OEM MINI center caps, like I did...
My wheels are Team Dynamics Pro Race 1's, and I hated their logo, so I made them look OEM, by adding official MINI center caps with some really aggressive 3M adhesive. They haven't come off, and still look stock, after 1.5 years.

 

I wish I could keep my center caps on, but different events (HPDE, autox ...) require that you take them off. I've seen people run with them on but it depends if they get through tech that way or not. If my caps could come off without taking the wheel off, I'd just pop them on and off, but they don't work that way so for the good weather seasons I go cap less (and I don't like that look). Oh well, it is worth it.

Someone needs to design a better center cap system. By the way, my wheels are Rota Slipstreams.

 

Part of me likes the look without the caps. I don't hate them when on, though. I guess my main concern was what rwkeating brought up. Taking caps off for autox/drivers schools can be a pain...

 

Most times if you have a centercap that is securely fastened to the wheel then you don't have to remove them.

If you have stock MINI wheels with a rubber cover that can easily come off then that does need to be removed for driving school or autocross. An example would be the 16" five spoke wheel.

For performance driving I always leave off the centercaps. For car shows I put them back on.

 

I have the 16' S-winder wheels still on my car -- yes I am going to get 17s and summer tires soon. The deal with these wheels is that they have standard plastic lug covers that pop off easily when you run over potholes (we have a LOT of potholes in Washington, DC!). I lost one already but I actually don't mind the look of those wheels with the lugs exposed BUT there is no center cap underneath that larger lug cover.

Standard MINI oem center caps are slightly too small to fit. Any suggestions for how to either get them to fit in there or an aftermarket suggestion?