Tires (Summer/Winter/All-Season)

Yup, ordered my R5s as soon as they were in stock locally, a couple of months ago. Long-time Nokian Hakka driver, I expect these will be the best I’ve owned yet.

 

Hmmm. Would an actual long-time Nokian driver abbreviate "Hakkapeliitta," the historiographical term used for a Finnish light cavalryman in the service of King Gustavus Adolphus of Sweden? Having Nokian Hakkapeliitta tires for our Clarity only since the day we drove the new car home from the dealer in a snowstorm 6 years ago, I'm not a long-timer--I have to look up the spelling every time.

 

Hopefully I can go another month+ before switching out the summer tires for the winter ones, but it did get me thinking about other winterizing steps I can take. Does anyone use something like Fluid Film on the underside of their SE? Is it even worth it with all the plastic covering down there?

 

Well that makes it easy, thanks!

 

Lol it’s 21°/70° and overcast and I just made my properly-inflated, 205/45-17 Eagle F1s protest going down a tight, slightly-off-camber cloverleaf ramp at 67 km/h (42 mph) where I could never get the lowered smart on 195/40-16 Yokohama S.drives to raise a fuss about up until my Pucker Limit™ — took it at 85 km/h many times!

Not complaining, it was still fun! Just interesting to find the tires’ sidewalls and realize that this car still has a LOT of mass to try to keep planted (almost double the smart’s mass, on a contact patch that’s not much larger). The tires have a very progressive limit, which is very reassuring.

 

We installed our Nokian Hakkaapelitta’s last week as we were staring to hit freezing temps overnight locally and we’re required to have winter rated tires on from October 1 to April 30.

We are impressed with how quiet they are when driving and how smooth they are over bumps since they’re 16’s vs summer 17’s. So far we have only seen a 0-2% decrease in range with warmer fall temperatures and dry roads during 35km commute to work.

Top photos are the summer set: 17” Tentacle Spokes with Hankook Ventus S1 Evo’s (combined weight: 38.4 lbs)

Bottom photos are the winter set: 16” Replika R181s with Nokian Hakkaapelitta R5’s (combined weight: 37.6 lbs)

 

Where did you find those R181 wheels? Hopefully it was in Canada. The tires I can get from KalTire, but I’m not too keen on their wheel selection. Thanks.

 

I ordered and picked them up from Innovative Autoworx in Calgary when we picked up our MINI in July.

 

I looked up the Replika "Find A Dealer" there are plenty of dealers in Vancouver, but I don't know what shipping costs from Quebec are.

 

They are good-looking wheels, really look appropriate for the F5x.

 

Perfect setting for BC but for NY I recommended those which could be use all year around bc snow here is few inches for few weeks for now I put them on Subaru how they work ? Next SE next year

 

For anybody in the far northeast of New England (or Atlantic Canada), there’s a set of 16” Loop Spokes with Pirelli winter tires available just outside Halifax, asking $300 Canadian (~$215 US). Might be worth a day trip if you’re in Maine. A 1600-mile road trip (in a petrol car!) negates the value for me.

 

Mounted my colder months wheels/tires this weekend. I'm in VA and we don't get a ton of snow/ice/etc (plus I wouldn't be driving the Mini if that were in the forecast, the Mach-E would do much better), so I just got some Continental Extremecontact DWS 06 Plus all-seasons. Ordered them from Tirerack mounted on 17" MSW Type 27 wheels. Have always enjoyed the tires on other cars so new I'd like them on the Mini. The wheels are okay, nothing crazy special.

Bummed the OEM Mini center caps are too small for the MSW wheels and can't seem to find aftermarket caps that would fit them, but the one's they come with are alright I guess.

 

If you're REALLY dedicated to finding center caps that fit, you can try to measure as accurately as possible, and keep trying various inexpensive ebay center caps (usually coming from China). There are multiple sizes with MINI logos, or you can get plain black ones and then MINI circular stickers. Once i get an obsession with finding the center caps i want, i will spend WAY too much money finding ones that work. I have a ton of mis-purchased caps that just didn't quite fit. The problem is that the more i spend, the more obsessed i get trying to find the right ones or it was a TOTAL waste of money!

You would think measuring with calipers would eliminate guesswork.. not so.. each seller has a certain way of providing measurements that even if correct, still lead to uncertainty and failures. You've been warned. LOL

 

Yea, I quickly realized it wouldn't be super simple since even MSW doesn't really give out the size of their caps. I may look into it some more if the MSW one's really start bothering me, but I'm not sure I'm ready to go down that rabbit hole haha

 

Also, dumdum may be your friend. Every spring and fall, I’ve been switching the Subaru center caps between the OE wheels with all seasons and aftermarket alloys with the Nokians, but they are loose in the aftermarket wheels. The tire shop used dumdum to hold them in when I bought them, and I’ve been making sure it still sticks ever since. I am getting rather tired of doing it though, so yesterday I ordered some OE Subaru caps off eBay for $40.

 

Not sure what yours look like but my aftermarket wheels came with plain black centre caps. I measured the inside dimensions of the cap and was able to order MINI stickers that fit perfectly so now they look like OEM caps.

 

What's up with no photo(s)? This mob needs photos to judge for ourselves. WE'LL decide if they're nothing crazy special (but if we agree, we'll be too polite to say so).

I tried googling and found there are multiple versions of the MSW Type 27 wheels, so we need more specs OR PHOTOS!

 

I figured that'd happen. In my haste I didn't snap any photos and it's already dark out so I'll grab some tomorrow and post! Terribly sorry.