Brakes Wheels 1st Gen Tires Most liked posts in thread: Steel Wheels for Winter?

Those are THE lightest 15' oem rim....
Traction all comes down to rubber....
Even a cheap winter tire will have more traction due to the rubber compounds used than a great all season....heck....my uhp tires are "ok" in the cold...but in even the d
Lightest bit of freezing precipitation it becomes a white knuckle ride..even though they are "untra high performance" all seasons...in the dry or rain, they can give a set a summers a run for the money.....kick their butts below 50° or so...but more than a dusting of snow...becomes a event you do not want to duplicate!! The opposite of a mini on snow tires in the snow...that IS a blast!!!

 

I have some steel 15's with snow tires on them for my car.

 

a lot of times you can still get some nice alum rims from tire rack for the same price as black steel rims. with stock brakes, if tire rack says they will fit, then they will. they are very good about that stuff. i recommend a 16 at least for looks and fitment. but 15's will work. i have many people running 17's also.

 

I have 15" wheels with my snowtires. Inexpensive alloys are not that much more expensive (actually marginally less expensive) than steel wheels sometimes. But when salt gets into them, they get cosmetically ugly. TireRack is pretty good a spec'cing the right wheels for MINIs, but best make sure the offset is right. 15" wheels will just barely make it around the brake calipers.

 

I use a set of Holies, yep they are close to the calipers on my MCS, but fit just fine.

 

If you have stock brakes (non Big brake kit) you should be ok with 15 or 16s

 

Im running my hoolies this winter. I had a hard time getting up my driveway last night. Freaking winter!

 

My suggestion...find a gen2 cooper owner with 15' alloys...see if they are upgrading to 17+, and buy them....
That's what I did for a cheap set of 15' oem alloys....
Then traded the 50% worn tires...sold the tpms and had the rims for...almost free!!
Truth be told...I actually have 2 sets of 15's...one with snows and one with cheap all seasons...and my regular 16's uhp's.....just found light weight rims makes the mini so much fun I laugh when I see a mini on 17' s"lites"....biggest joke ever...makes the mini feel like a 18 wheeler compared to light 15 or 16' rims....
Initially I did look at steel rims...actually put about 50 miles on a set...just too heavy...and getting the correct hub centers for steel rims can be hard...