I've read numerous posts on here about 215-45-17 tires fitting on 17 x 7 wheels with no rubbing, even if the car has been lowered a little bit. I just purchased some new wheels that are 17x7 +40 and ONLY the drivers side rear tire will rub when I hit a dip in the road. Not a sharp hit, but something that will fully compress the suspension. It seems to be hitting on the plastic fender flare about where it meets the black plastic part of the bumper (there is A LOT of tire shine in that area that is all caked on). It just seems strange to me that the drivers side rear hits, while the passenger side rear doesn't and neither do the fronts at full lock. At first I thought it might be because I am heavy and my weight was dragging it down, but I had my wife drive the car with me in the passenger seat and it STILL hits. Is there anything I can do in order to get a little more clearance for this? My wife is going to autocross the car this weekend and I am afraid that the plastic fender flare will get ripped off with all the rubbing!!! Any ideas???

Thanks in advance,
Dennis

EDIT: I just looked and it seems that the tires I bought are 24.8" tall while the originals are 24.2" tall. Most of the other 215's seem to be about 24.6" tall. Maybe that is the difference? I purchased Avon Tech M550 A/S's for reference.

 

A little light rubbing on one wheel is common. If the rubbing is slight you will wear both the tire edge and the black plastic. Should not be a major problem when autocrossing. The more you drive the more you wear the plastic so gradually it will get better and no trimming might work for you.

Your offset isn't much clearance compared to an offset of about +45mm which might have worked better then offset of +40mm. Stock is about +48mm and the limit with stock suspension is about +38mm.

The 215/45-17 tires when new are often larger than stock and some have square shoulders and rub alot. Eventually the rubber wears down.

Another possible thing to do is get an alignment for autocross with a bit more negative camber in the rear than stock, you can adjust a little if you have a new MINI.

Autocross and street alignment settings:
Front toe 1/16" out
Front camber- cannot be set without adding camber plates.
Rear toe zero
Rear camber -1.6 to -1.8 degrees.

 

Yup, I wanted GoodYear F1 GS-D3's. They didn't come in the 205-45-17, but 215-45-17. Alex at Tirerack coached me since I was buyig wheels at the same time and he told me I could go with the Kosei's I liked in 17 x 7.5 with 45mm offset and use the 214-45-17's. No problems, no rubbing, that includes with 4 in the car, and just me on the Dragon at full boogey and track days... He of course also asked if I had or planned to lower or make any brake changes...

 

minihune,

YOu mentioned that no trimming is needed. Well, if I decided to trim it, is there anything that might work better and where would you recommend to start?? I just don't want the fender flare to rip off sometime when it hits (i've seen pictures on here). It looks as though the plastic fender wraps around the metal so if I trimmed the plastic, I would only get about 1/8" of clearance since the metal is right below it. Does that little bit really help that much???

I'm also hoping that the fronts will wear down much faster than the rears so I can rotate them back there. I guess i'll have to tell my wife to keep her foot planted and spin the tires!! Unfortunately, the tires I got have a 320 or so treadwear, so I figure they'll last about 30-40K miles....which means i need to wait 2 years until they hit 20K miles and actually start getting a little smaller!

 

Here is a How to for trimming.
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ead.php?t=6618

It's not that bad for you since you have stock suspension. Probably you don't have that much rear negative camber so the angle of the tire allows for some rubbing due to your minimal offset.

Tires will wear down sooner than you think. Front tires especially will get worn just from doing some autocrossing.

The Avon all season tires aren't the stickiest tires for autocross so I don't think you will be pushing too hard (your tires will complain, just listen for them). Hence the rubbing will occur but not too badly since autocross is short and you have only a few runs.

I never bothered to trim my wheel wells even with H-sport springs (one inch drop), 215/45-17 tires and 17x7 rims with +42mm offset. They simply wore from rubbing and I never really had much trouble. Both tire and plastic wore.
I even had as little as -0.7 degrees negative camber in the rear at one point.

With four people in the MINI I'd get much more rubbing but not so bad with one or two people only. I'd consider trimming if I had four people all the time.

 

Thanks for that information!!!

From reading the thread you linked to, it looks like they were rubbing on the inside fenderwell. I haven't really checked, but I think I am rubbing on the OUTSIDE fender cover. I'll have to check it out to see if I might be rubbing on the fender. If I trim and I still hear some noise, i'll try to get the camber adjusted slightly to help alleviate the noise. Then it'll be a little more fun at the autocross too!!

 

Be cautious dialing in more negative camber on the rear to fix the rubbing. Unless you can also add negative camber to the front (camber plates) you may be increasing understeer. Maybe a 1/16" toe out on the front would combat the "push". Best of luck.

 

I want the Goodyears too... some comments from folks seem to indicate they wish that had got the 40s rather than the 45s do to their handling characteristics. So I'm thinking about 215/40-17... with wheels that have a +42 offset. Seems like a safe bet... Discount Tire even lists this as a size (along with 205/50-17... ugh) that will work on the MINI. The overall diameter should be about 0.5 inch less than the stock 205/45-17s, by my reckoning... hopefully rubbing would not be a problem, even without mods to the wheel well liner.

Tire Rack is selling the 215/40-17s right now for $99!

Dan