Prepping (and personalizing) my winter wheels

About those noise concerns - I've found that the type of pavement makes a huge difference in the noise. Blacktop makes one sound, and patched blacktop another. Concrete is different - and different paving techniques another. There's one road near the airport that has some kind of grooving that sounds like a jet is landing over the car. The first time I heard it, I was looking all over for the plane. Same sound every trip. And loud, compared to other concrete on the same road. Winter or summer tires, same sound.

 

I've never had summer performance tires before and I find my Hankooks so wonderful that I'll always have them on my SE during the non-snowy months. The reduced cornering power of my Michelin winter tires reminds me daily how great the Hankooks are. I assume good all-season tires would corner better than my Michelin winter tires, but certainly not as well as summer performance tires.

 

You're not missing much there. But an Amazon associate account is free, and you can add affiliate links to that video you posted. But with my own videos, I've earned $12 from Amazon in 6 months+.

 

The Hankooks - they are fantastic! I don’t want to risk my Power spokes during the winter, so I think you are right - all weather tires for the wet winter! I will wait until the discount code for those tires goes live. Thanks for sharing those codes.

 

Especially great because you found such a great color match with Energetic Yellow. I love the application tool you used--you're obviously a pro.

 

My experience exactly - except different airport

 

Some of my earlier Mini's came with Hankooks. The handling was good, but the lifespan was horrible. When I complained, my MA agreed with me.

 

Having winter tires on my SE part of the year has extended lifespan of my Hankooks. I like them so much that I'll be looking for another set when these wear out. I hope Discount Tire can get them, but will go the distant dealer route if I have to.

 

I order from Amazon Oracal651 vinyl 1/4 Brimstone Yellow and was fishy as roll of striping was clean inside from who manufactured but any way I went ahead and did two wheels .As I did some vinyl before I don’t believe this is going to hold for so long but a time will be an answer .Tomorrow next two I have to back up a car to garage to make room on one side to work on it.As I have two beer’s only I can do one side today .I buy two for tomorrow to finish a project.As I paint my calipers with only 100 miles on a car and today as I’m seeing them first time after 9 month and clean one on front I put a picture how looks ,I’m happy what I see no peeling a paint I used hold very well and I paint them with brush from spray can. You may wander my rotors so clean I use that staff on every car /new/ before I drive to coat rotors and bolts to prevent rust and seize a wheel.

 

As I’m looking on your winter tire you did excellent job using the tool to apply striping but what is going to happen when you try to dismantle a tire once you over a leap of the rim looks like after that you have to do striping again .I did my striping 1/8” away from top of a rim hoping a striping survive when I dismantle a tire .Let’s see in a future how this works with different design . As I did my 5 th wheel bc I own 8 of them exactly the same you did but lack of tool was not easy to do perfect job as you did .A yellow wheels looks really good with my yellow calipers and center cap .Still waiting for silicone covers of my center bolts .

 

My WRG4s are a bit noisy on my SE. Don't really notice on my R53, but that has a header and makes a godawful racket.
I put some Conti purecontacts on my ex's car. They were fairly decent on snow for all seasons, though not as good as WRG4s. I hear good things about extremecontacts.

 

@SameGuy today my dealer tells me that my Victory Spokes wheels (from a 2016 MINI) won't fit the 2023 SE because it has bigger brakes. Did you have a similar issue ?

 

Perhaps your dealer should consult the MINI website:

 

What size are they? 15” wheels won’t fit.

 

Yeah. We are in Canada, where they are not an option.