195/55-16 is what was on mine on delivery, but there are optional 17 and 18's available from the factory as OEM sizes
One more thing. Is the suspension the same on the stock justa with 15 and the stock MCS with 16, or is something changed? I know the Justa can get 16's as an option, but am not sure if this requires other changes. Jim
I have a "justa" just bought a set of wheels and tires off a fellow Mini owner I went from stock 15"s to 205/50/17's fit perfect never lowered it. If I had I don't know that they would of fit. The biggest difference I've noticed over the last week is my gas milage has dropped. I was average about 39, now I'm getting 34 mpg. But I definately like the profile (look).
No, stock MCS will have a "sportier" suspension than a stock Justa (without the sport upgrade). I think this mostly boils down to swaybar diameter differences.
How are you calculating the new MPG? Keep in mind that with the 205/50/17, your odometer will now be incorrect...so calculating your mileage off that will no longer be accurate.
Rally Stance, actually thats the strange part. When I had the origionals 175/55/15 my mph was off 4 miles per hour, so it showed me going faster than I actually was. Now with the 205/50/17 its only two miles per hour. Wouldn't it of been the opposite? As for pictures I will be taken pictures tonight. Its just a perfect fit I think.
A nerd writes: A 205/50/17 is 4.6% bigger diameter than a 175/65/15, so that's how much difference there should be in speed and distance. So your 39mpg on 15s would become 37.3 on the 17s just because of the change in diameter. The rest of the difference will be from the increased aero drag of the wider tires - drag from tires is quite a significant contribution to total aero drag. I recently switched from 175/65/15 to 195/55/16 and have seen about a 2mpg drop - and about half that drop is because the 16" tires are bigger diameter. Andrew
This is a cool thing to use. It says your tires are beyond the safe 3% increase range. It also gives the speed-o-meter change. Tire Size Calculator - tire & wheel plus sizing Jim
Andrew....... I have a question...... In your first example.... Since the circumference increased going to the 17" size, one would assume if there is no slippage in the transmission (a manual), wouldn't for every rotation of the crank, the MINI should roll farther. Wouldn't that in itself improve the miles per gallon, not reduce it? I agree that increased tire profile width and height would increase drag, but I'm not sure I follow your rational on the diameter increase reducing the speed and distance.
We're getting to technical for me. That was very telling Andrew, thank you. As for the 3% beyond safe increase. I really don't understand that. Theres lot of Mini's out there with 205/17's on them. I have never heard that before. Besides I think the origional tires should of been 185's not 175's there to small. In the winter I will switch back to my 185/50/15 Nokians, OMG for me thats in October. Winter is around the corner.
So I just did the caculator (tire) thing from jbewly, its brake failure I have to worry about? Thats real comforting, since I cross over two mountain passes over 11,000 ft. each day.
It's confusing, innit? If you drive a 39-mile road on 15s and the car uses one gallon, that's 39mpg. Now switch to the bigger 17s and drive exactly the same road. Because the tires are bigger, they had to make slightly fewer revolutions to cover the 39 miles and so the odometer will say that the car has only done 37.3 miles. If we assume for the moment that the drag is the same for both tires, the car will still have used the same one gallon. So it will look like the fuel economy has got worse, but actually it hasn't. Since in this example the economy had gone to 34mpg, it is about 3mpg worse real economy plus 2mpg worse from the change in wheel diameter, giving the 5mpg total. But only about 3mpg of that change is for real. Is that as clear as mud? Andrew
Let me ask this question. With my 15's I regularly get 114 miles when the first light goes out and around 510 when the last two turn red. If I go to a larger tire, would these numbers still be a good check for mpg lost since, they do not rely on the computer? Jim
Maybe......... Ah, but I'm not using the odometer, because I know it's off with the 17" wheel. The length of the 39 miles hasn't changed, it's still 39 miles, but with the longer rolling distance for each tire revolution, I would use less actual gas than perceived gas for the actual distance than the perceived distance. However I would be using US gallons not imperial gallons (I get 50 to your 41.63). I would be driving my 39 miles to your 62.76 kilometers (So I would get beer sooner:beer). I would be driving from east to west, so the earth's rotation would be assisting my MPG. I would be buying my gas with dollars not euros (so I will have more left over for beer:beer). Yeah........ it's clear now:lol::lol::lol:
jbewly, you hit the nail on the head I usually got 112 to 114 on the gas ticks on the first one the other day I got 98 miles. That 14 to 16 miles difference. I'm still happy with the overall milage, I'm more concerned about the brake failure part now. Does that mean I would be changing brakes more often or do I need to go to a bigger brake system?