The upcoming Southwest MINIfest and later on MTTS this year have had me pondering what to do about tires on road trips. At the shop we have several 16 inch MINI oe wheels with decent tires, which I regularly lend and/or sell to customers just for road trips once they have moved on from their run flats to regular tires. I personally have a cooper donut as well as a plug kit and fix a flat which is all fine for me, but if someone else is driving the car and has a flat, that’s a problem. Especially if it is your ex and your 13 yo son driving back from Boston after MTTS. In the interest of space amd simplicity for MTTS I decided to explore the current run flat options. I have regularly denounced run flat tires as the devils own invention, after the terrible Pirelli Euphorias that came on my 05 R53S. A customer recently took delivery of his 2013 JCW and peeled the Continental Contisport 3s off pretty quickly, and made me a good deal on them for my experiment (thanks Ted). The Magic Bus has been riding around on the black NM wheels/sumitomo tires that are actually from my 05 R53S Calvin. I have not been a fan of Continental tires either, so all this was a reach for me. 3 months ago I was left a set of BBS (it Says BBS RS844 on inner spokes-realoem says LA Cross Spoke composite R90) which were HORRIBLY curbed. 3 of them were curb rashed 360 degrees around and one had a 4 inch long chunk broken off the outside edge. The first MINI I saw this style wheel on was the 2004 R53 MC40, with a dark grey center, then they were optional on 05/06 but as I recall they were kinda pricey. Current price for one is 473.60 in silver. I nearly gave them to the metal recycle guys 3 times, but I like them (for heavy oem wheels). I now wish I had taken before photos as I sent them all out to Wheels America for refinishing. When the driver picked them up he was doubtful about the one missing the outer chunk, but I told them to do the other 3 and if that one couldn’t be fixed I would find a 4th to match. As you can see from the photos below, Wheels America made these things PERFECT! I am sooo impressed with the repairs I will regularly recommend them now. So the experiment was to install correct TPMS valves and mount up the run flats and see how it drove-seems easy enough, right? Worst case scenario I take em off and sell everything and go back to my favorite aftermarket NM wheels. For everyones future reference, and the point of this lengthy post the BBS R90 cross spokes seen here DO NOT accept TPMS valves easily. I apologise right here for the lack of photos as we went along, just didn’t realize this was going to be a tech story for the world. The TPMS valves I had from the original wheels for this car, could not be tightened up enough to seal as the sensor hit the very thick inner edge of the wheel. After considering the options (grinding a notch on the inner wheel surface to clear the sensor or adding a spacer under the rubber seal on the valve stem) I decided on the spacer. It actually required 2 small washers below the seal of the valve stem. The sealing rings for an R56 turbo oil feed line bolt were ideal size wise. After this, back to the tire shop and we still have issues of leaking around the stems….. damn. I nearly gave up here, but one more dismount (4 times total mount and dismount) I noticed the wheels are kinda rough as cast on the inner surfaces, & since a rubber tire stem pulls in there pretty tight and seals along its top and sides as well as the bottom they don’t leak as designed. I carefully sanded the lower surface, where the tpms valve rubber ring must seal, flat and smooth with some sandpaper. Reassembled them all and FINALLY they all sealed and I drove on them for a week, through the latest nasty rainstorms here in SoCal. At this point I have to eat some crow-the Continental contisport 3 runflats have excellent stick-I hammered them pretty hard on the wet roads these past few days. Unfortunately, they still ride like crap and I am certain wear will be fast, but I only need them for road trips, mainly MTTS so that’s ok. I have now removed them to save for the upcoming road trips I went through all this aggravation for.
Wow, those look a little like the wheels I just put on my R56. Though they are def not BBS. Those look great.
no workie Sad to report without serious machine work on the inside edges of these wheels, the tpms valves will not work. Removed them and pulled rubber stems in and the tires hold air week after week, but with the tpms valves they we still losing air, 5 lbs a day