North American Motoring - Runflats vs reg tires on my jcw

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Runflats vs reg tires on my jcw

just a random question for the fellow Mini heads. On to my second Mini & have replaces many sets of tires I still am torturing myself & the fellow passenger here & there with the ride of the “Run Flat”! I k ow a lot of u swapped them & never use or used them because of this. What do u guys do without a spare ? or to make yourself feel better god for bid a nasty blowout?!? I don’t wanna ruin my rims or my car with a bad flat etc..also without driving around with a spare tire in my trunk. cause I would love to have the ride of regular tires. also would appreciate some recommendations on regular tires. I been using pirelli pzero runflats think the size is 205 45 r17. I like pirelli cause it is the only tire that I haven’t had a sidewalk bubble with yet on the terrible streets of NYC.
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thank u everyone

Runflats give you safety of not needing to stop in bad weather or traffic for flat tire or other problem. Also if others drive your MINI they have that safety too.

Non runflats ride and perform better and come in more sizes, most commonly 215/45-17 which you can use in addition to OEM 205/45-17. You can get a compact spare tire and put it in a bag and leave in the boot, or fix a flat, or use AAA or other flat tire service you can call.

Michelin Pilot Super Sport or now Pilot 4S is the Summer tire of choice that comes in both mentioned sizes and does well for street use dry or wet or you can get Michelin Pilot A/S 3 for All Season use if you have cold weather. Do you drive in snow? If so summer tires are not any good for snow.

I feel your pain, I too live in a pothole city a little north of you. And I swapped out the RFTs for nonRFTs. When I did that I just bought the Harbor Freight $35ish all metal 12v tire pump and I have AAA for what the pump doesn’t cover.

Then I bought RFT snow tires for the car. I was glad I did when I found a few weeks later, in a 10 deg F snow storm at Stowe that a tire had picked up a nail and lost air over night. Just drove to the ski resort and worried about the low tire after skiing.

Go with a 215 tire instead of the 205. This will give you a taller sidewall, and a little better ride and protection against the potholes. Also, when I replaced my shocks I found that the ride improved to the point that I am back to running the RFTs. The MINI shocks don’t work well with the RFTs (actually the MINI shocks are crap). There are now some RFT tires that ride better than the OEM tires MINI uses; check TireRack. Shocks and RFT tires might be an option.

I know, not exactly what you were asking, but just giving another thought on the subject. In NYC you may want to consider keeping the RFTs as you have a lot of places where you can’t stop and change a tire, even if you did carry a spare. So you would ruin a wheel if you did go to a nonRFT.

I use one of my snowtires (on wheels) as a spare when I go on long trips. Otherwise, I go without a spare. I have an AAA (Called CAA in Canada) membership, a bottle of tirefill, a small compressor, and a tire plug kit in the side cubby hole of my boot.

By experience (I have 3 MINIs in my house), runflat tires go flat all the time. The runflat tires that came with my R53 when new, had 3 flat tire occassions in the first 2 years. Then the sidewalls literally came apart. So on year 3, I replaced with non runflat tires and have gone through 4 sets of summer tires since and have not had a flat tire situation at all.

On the R56, we have had for one year and have have had 2 flat tire situations (we patched them from the inside) so far on the runflat tires.
On the 2018 (F60) Countryman Cooper S. I've only had the car 2 months and have had 1 flat tire so far.

Runflat tires pick up nails like magnets. Sure, they are a safety feature that allows you to drive your car to somewhere you can get it fixed, but the unintended consequence is they also make the tire more susceptible to needing to use that safety feature.