[Ian Theobald]

G,day folks.as you guessed I am from the land of Oz where space saving wheels were not an option as far as I know.
I just purchased a 2005 cooper with 16 inch runflats and have been tearing my hair out initially trying to find a suitable space saver
Then My son visited with his Suzuki Swift with 17 inch alloys with very low profiled tyres and it suddenly dawned on me to check his spare.
You little ripper,his spare is a space saver of 15 X 125 X 70d
This fits perfectly over hub and studs and easily in the boot or if so desired under the floor once a mounting kit or similar is made.
I removed the plastic cover from underneath and if I was to cut the well out where tools are kept could probably mount a stock standard 16 inch allow and shove jack and wheel brace inside cover on right wheel arch and have a flat floor welded in place of tool compartment.
I have only had this car for a week having sold my old MG TC.
Wouldn't you think Mr BMW would of sold more minis here in Oz if only this option was available as no wants runflats.
From experience most tubeless tyres only leak slow and if noticed can usually pump up and get to a tyre place where they can get them selves dirty.
Hope this helps

 

[Ian Theobald]

Attached are more p

ictures

 

[Ian Theobald]

I thought I must update this post.
I now have the Suzuki wheel mounted under the car retained by a cable type winch out of a commercial 1 ton ute similar to how trucks retain .
All that was required was to feed the cable through the rubber grommet and bolt the winch inside where Styrofoam tool box is kept.
I cut the tool box in half keeping the section for the jack and wheel bolt.
I now run tubeless 16 inch tyres .
The tyre place at 1st told me the space saver would be of no use as wheel bolts would be different but this was a load of rubbish
My wheel nuts are of the tappered type suiting the space saver and not the rounded type so that is all that needs to be checked.
Even so ,tapered bolts are easily obtained just for use with a space saver if your wheels take rounded type.
Will try and update with pictures