After 30K miles of harsh ride and no tread left on my Goodyear Eagle run flats, I would like to replace them with regular tires. Strangely enough, I have a spare mounted under my car, even though the dealer told me I didn't have one. Has anyone replaced run flats on their Mini without changing out the wheels?

 

Tons of threads on this. Short answer.... Yes...

Oops, I see that you are new to the forum. Sorry to be so curt.


Yes, many people have switched to regular tires and the wheels that come with the MINI will support regular tires.

Welcome to the forum...

 

Thank you!! That's all I need.

 

My Clubman came with Continental run flats, they ride pretty nice.

Dave

 

I ordered them today, They will be here tomorrow and installed,balanced and I will go to my Chevy dealer and get them filled with nitrogin. I'm putting on 215/45/17's in place of the 205/45/17 Dunlap runflats that came on my 2009 JCW. One of the Dunlaps has a plug due to a puncture on the tread. The cheapest I could find a replacement Dunlap was $324.00 + tax, installation and shipping (probably close to $400.00 total) and all four Michelins are costing $829.00 installed and balanced with a $70.00 rebate coming right from Michelin brings them to $759.00 total. That is why I decided to replace all four tires. From all of the things I have read on this forum I decided on the non-runflats. I already bought Slime to carry with me and I will get a 12 volt air pump to also keep in the car.

 

Elizczer:

You have a Cooper, not a Cooper S. The standard Cooper (the one without the turbo) comes with a spare. Its surprising how many Mini sales folks are nto aware of that. Mine wasn't either.

When you upgrade to the Bridgespoke 16" alloy wheels, the car seems to automatically acquire run-flat tires. I presume they use the same base tire/wheel combo for the base "S" model so its easier for the factory to just include the run-flats. It looks to me like most standard Coopers include the 16 inch tire option. Its rare to see a base 15 inch wheel on a Gen 2 Mini.

Run-flats often cost nearly twice what one would expect to pay for a non-run-flat. To some, the extra cost and the harsh ride is still preferrable to having to change a tire on the side of a road in the middle of the night somewhere. I would put run-flats on my daughter's car regardless of how much she hated them.

The tires are the same with regard to how they mount. Run-flat and non-run flats use the same wheel. You may want to play with tire pressure a bit after you have switched. It often seems to me that the non-run flats take a bit more pressure to produce the same sort of handling as the run-flats (the RFs have a much stiffer sidewall).

To answer your original question as to whether anyone had changed them, the answer obviously is yes -- almost all of us.

 

...ooh a SPARE? Damn those Justa Cooper owners get all the frills!

I too ditched the runflats (after running a year in ASP with them ) and never looked back.

With respect to the nitrogin, I gave that up -- I ran out of olives, and the nitro was too touchy to handle at high tempuratures...

:-)