I am wondering how I can rotate my tires (when I say rotate, I mean front to back.)

I have not even seen the jack for the MINI, but I am guessing (may be wrong) that it won't lift the entire side of the car off the ground so both tires can be removed and swapped. Can the standard jack lift both tires off the ground? If not, is there a central jack point that will lift the entire side of the car? And if so would a cheap floor jack do the trick?

The reason I ask is that I believe my driving style (especially with these poor all season run flats) may call for rotating the tires more often than the dealer will do it (during scheduled maintenance.)

 

THe MINI is amazingly stiff. I generally don't trust supplied jacks as they are mean for the rare emergency not frequent maintence/ upgrades (safe than sorry, intended use and oersinal preferance, so no flames please). When I use my floor jack I lift from the front (2 locations possible) and the whole side of the car lifts up. If you take a look at the Oil (710) change and brake how-tos you will see instructions for properly jacking the MINI.

 

For occasional tire rotation, I wouldn't be afraid at all to use the stock Mini jack to lift one side of the car at a time, as long you are on smooth, level concrete or asphalt. I used to use the stock jacks for my Neons to jack the car up to swap tires at autocrosses, and I typically got two years (dozens of tire swaps) out of a jack before I felt like they needed replacing.

As motor on said, lifting from a front (side) jacking point will lift the whole side of the car, just make sure you loosen the lugs before jacking, have the e-brake on (and the car in gear), and are careful, and you should have no problems using the Mini jack a couple of times a year. FWIW I use a $70-80 lightweight floor jack from Harbor Freight to swap tires for autocrossing now.

-Keith

 

Actually the dealer charges for tire rotation even under the 36,000 mile warranty period.

 

get yourself a good floor jack, it will definitely be worth the investment in the long run, and makes tire rotations a snap, the one I got even will lift up the whole side of my mazda3!

 

Make sure you do a search on here on how to properly jack the MINI there have been lots of people who jacked using the rubber pad jack points only to have the plastic block shear away and the mini come down on the jack, there have been lots of threads on it and i am tired of finding the links

 

There's a long flat area about 6" or so (if memory serves) inward of the front plastic jack-pad-thingie, on either side of the car. I lay a small wood block on my floor jack & use this area. Lifts the entire side easily.
FYI - I had the factory jack & plastic thingie roll out from under the car one day. I won't use it anymore.

 

When I place the floor jack under the front jack point & give a couple of pumps the whole side of the car raises off the ground. Very stiff car indeed.

 

yep, it's ironic that the car i don't do tire rotations is the easiest to do
out of my other cars. lol although i can't rotate my G35C's setup
either as it's staggered.