Hi all

Im a new member and on the verge of getting my first mini 'as soon as I have sold my car', and decided on what colour to go for. The question is

What wheel size is best for the mini cooper. I like 18 , and even 19. What is the ride like on these sizes??

Cant wait to get a mini. watch this space, its gonna be awsome.

:cool:

On the Cooper stick with 16s, you start to lose the agility above that - unless you just want it to look good of course ;)

and welcome to MINI2 :)

i love the agility of my 15"s, i drove my mates one with 19s on and the steering felt sluggish tbh. his was pre facelift so i dont know if anythings changed since then, but i certainly noticed a difference.

I concur with Soggy!

I bought mine on 16s, but later upgraded to 17s. On a larger wheel, you can't throw the car into corners as hard, well you can, but you might end up in a hedge.

Plus the tyres are more expensive, and it feels like someone has injected concrete into the shock absorbers!

So don't go higher than a 17!

might end up in a hedge! im sticking with my 15's, best for that go-kart ride!. and no im not bitter about not being able to afford the jcw 18's.....

im not sure if I should buy a mini with big rims already on, or buy one with 15 , 16 and put my own on. i will have to see what is out there

Nothing at all wrong with the 15" wheels. Why pay extra for 16s or 17s :confused:

I personally think 17"s are the best... and I don't think you should go smaller than 16.

i think 17s look as sexy as 18 and 19s in the show department. when you consider performance on top of it, 18 and 19s are too heavy and ride is too harsh.

17s are just right.

Depends on where you live....

If you are in the land of Perfect roads and endless summer, then 17s are pretty much perfect. Something really light like Team Dynamics or OZ Superleggeras

I, however, live in the land of endless potholes and broken pavement, and so I am trading in my harsh, heavy, slow, and expensive 17" S-lites for a set of 15X7 Team Dynamics PR1's with Yokohama AVS ES100's in 225-50-R15. This will be a grippy, tight, light setup that should be perfect for my area and driving style.

In all comes down to $$$ and reality. I see tons of people with three 18" wheels on their hondas, and one ugly spare donut since they smashed their wheel on a pothole. Around here its just not worth it... plus we have the worst roads in the country!

18's and 19's also start to really hurt performance, so I'd steer clear of those. Bad braking distances, slow acceleration, bad suspension response, and more road noise.

RMout

i would go for the 16s,i had them on my mc they were great.welcome to mini2 minige ;)

I've got 17" run flats on my S and was just telling my husband the other day that I'd like 16s instead, which made him a little angry since the 17s were much more expensive. I had 16s on my first MC and the drive was noticeably smoother.

And Rally Mini: I was in Chicago a few years ago and they had potholes the size of MINIs! Boston's worse? :eek:

15" 16" 17" 18", all depends on personal taste and how you want the car to look. If it is handling, ride, and performance you are more interested in DITCH the run flats and get a decent set of tyres, which will improve all of the areas mentioned. I have 18" TSW alloys, with 225/35 Yokohama Parada tyres, the ride is 10 times better than the run flats, and the grip amazing

Of those three choices, 17", but I'd personally go with 16" every time.

18's for looks alone - fill the wheel arches just perfick :)

The John Cooper Challenge MCS has 16" wheels...

Hi minige,

I bought the JCW 18's but I only put them on occasionally for show, I much prefer to drive on the 16' X-lites with non run flats. The lower unsprung weight makes the car much more responsive and nicer to drive, especially on bumpy surfaces, (like Irish roads).

The engineers who worked on developing the 'new' Mini say the cars handling is at its best on 15's.

I think wheel sizes, these days, are being driven more by fashion then by application.

So, if you're into looks go big, but if you want a mini that's nicer and more responsive to drive, stay with 15' or max 16' and get decent rubber on them.

Just my €0.02

Tim

I'm changing my 15's over to 17's today....I'll let you know what I think! :)

19's all the way. I had the 15" steel wheels on my car for the first year then upgraded to 18"alloys. I didnt notice a difference in ride quality at all. Around corners it just keeps gripping. The only disadvantage is that it appears to loose speed more easily on steep hills but that might also be because my MINI only has 90bhp. As soon as my tyres are ready for replacing im going to upgrade to 19's. If you want to go fast buy a fast car if you want to look good buy a MINI. :D :cool:

19's all the way. I had the 15" steel wheels on my car for the first year then upgraded to 18"alloys. I didnt notice a difference in ride quality at all. Around corners it just keeps gripping. The only disadvantage is that it appears to loose speed more easily on steep hills but that might also be because my MINI only has 90bhp. As soon as my tyres are ready for replacing im going to upgrade to 19's. If you want to go fast buy a fast car if you want to look good buy a MINI. :D :cool:

Very well said !!
;)

Not big on 15's unless you drive a million miles a year and need to keep costs down.
16's are very good for performance. I run 16's on my E30 ///M3 and it's perfect.
17's are the best for looks and performance. Cost is still pretty moderate. The best overall choice.
18's look the best but are easier to bend/heavier/not as performance oriented.
19's look stupid on a MINI. The car is too small. I would never consider 19's on a MINI. Maybe a truck.

I think wheel sizes, these days, are being driven more by fashion then by application.
Tim

Oh, come on – those folks running 24-inch wheels on their mid-eighties Oldsmobiles are doing it completely for the performance benefit (and I run and hide from them when I see them swaying down the road...) :)
And don't get me started on spinners...

Seriously, I've seen MINIs with 17s and 18s that looked nice, but I really like the look of a bit more rubber on the wheel than that. We have 16s, which are fine, and I think fit the look of the car extremely well, but I keep thinking we might do better performance-wise with a nice, light set of 15s.

In my case, for looks, I wouldn't do anything larger than 16 (and there are some awfully nice-looking 16-inch wheels on the market), but I'm a snob when it comes to wheel/tire size, so your mileage may vary...

-Eric

I have 17" on my golf. its lowered aswell, so they look bigger than what they are.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y293/deanopaul/PICT0049.jpg

Cant wait to get a mini!!

One of my snobbish issues with large wheels is what I call the "wheel/brake gap ratio"
I get very tired of seeing cars (often Hondas) with 17-inch wheels (or whatever) on top of these tiny little 9-inch disc brakes. There is then a huge gap between the brakes and the inner edge of the wheel that announces to the world that your car does not have the performance to back up your expensive wheels.
The worst part is that these cars often add insult to injury by showing off their rusty little drum brakes in the back. Large SUVs are also often guilty of this.

Now I happen to own a car with tiny, little, rusty drum brakes on all four wheels, but they're hidden behind very modest, original factory steel wheels. There is nothing about that car that says "performance", and I won't be a poseur by having wheels that try to go there. I also looked at upgrading the wheels on our old Golf Sport, but didn't want to until I upgraded the brakes (which I never got around to doing, so it still rides on its factory wheels).

Now MINIs, and Golfs too, on occasion, do have a sporting pretense, and it is right and proper that they have wheels that show that off, but having a really big set of wheels over the factory brakes runs the risk of looking like you're trying too hard in the wrong place.

Mind, this is one of my illogical briefs of mental instability (I would call it a pet peeve if I didn't also illogically hate the phrase "pet peeve"), so take it all with a whole shaker of salt...

-Eric

I personally think 17"s are the best... and I don't think you should go smaller than 16.


yup yup... i also prefer 17's... they look great.... :D

One of my snobbish issues with large wheels is what I call the "wheel/brake gap ratio"
I get very tired of seeing cars (often Hondas) with 17-inch wheels (or whatever) on top of these tiny little 9-inch disc brakes. There is then a huge gap between the brakes and the inner edge of the wheel that announces to the world that your car does not have the performance to back up your expensive wheels.
The worst part is that these cars often add insult to injury by showing off their rusty little drum brakes in the back. Large SUVs are also often guilty of this.

Now I happen to own a car with tiny, little, rusty drum brakes on all four wheels, but they're hidden behind very modest, original factory steel wheels. There is nothing about that car that says "performance", and I won't be a poseur by having wheels that try to go there. I also looked at upgrading the wheels on our old Golf Sport, but didn't want to until I upgraded the brakes (which I never got around to doing, so it still rides on its factory wheels).


Now MINIs, and Golfs too, on occasion, do have a sporting pretense, and it is right and proper that they have wheels that show that off, but having a really big set of wheels over the factory brakes runs the risk of looking like you're trying too hard in the wrong place.

Mind, this is one of my illogical briefs of mental instability (I would call it a pet peeve if I didn't also illogically hate the phrase "pet peeve"), so take it all with a whole shaker of salt...

-Eric

Waw, that is one love of brakes. The brakes on the above Golf are Brembo, and there is not a much better perfomance brake than Brembo 'Look good too'.

I agree with eric…

I remember seeing a Cadillac escalade with open 26 inch rims on stock disc brakes… the brakes looked so tiny… :eek: the wheels are very beautiful but with disc brakes like that, it ruined the whole look of the car… :mad:

I think 16’s and 17’s are just right for the mini’s stock disc brakes… :D

18’s would do, but still the brakes would be left behind… ;) 19’s are waaaaaay to big… :eek:

-->ed

Here are some pictures of MINI's with different sized aftermarket wheels, from 15" to 19". Personally i cant see the attraction of any wheel less than 18" but thats what MINI's are about, being individual.

Hi all

Im a new member and on the verge of getting my first mini 'as soon as I have sold my car', and decided on what colour to go for. The question is

What wheel size is best for the mini cooper. I like 18 , and even 19. What is the ride like on these sizes??

Cant wait to get a mini. watch this space, its gonna be awsome.

:cool:
Ah there you are buddy - I see you've already been doing some research!
It's worth finding some of the owners with the S works 18"s since Mini offer wheels that big as an option so they've obviously got confidence in them.
One of the biggest differences in ride quality is runflat tyres vs. conventional ones - you've driven mine already with the 17" runflats I've got, I'm guessing 18"s on conventional tyres would be no worse ride-wise.

Funny story here - Minige is one of my friends and has a really tidy VW Golf mark 4 as you can see by his photo. We had a day out at a VW show recently since his car was on show to the public.
That night I let him have a drive in my Mini and now his Golf is up for sale and he's after a Mini now!
Converted! :D
See you Thursday for a beer!

17's are my choice :cool: