MINI Cooper S tyre advice.

GSDog

GSDog

GSDog

Soldato
Joined
12 Jun 2004
Posts
5,477
Location
Exeter
Hi all.

My mum's 2006 MINI Cooper S had it's MOT the other day and there was an advisory saying that the inside of both rear tyres were heavily worn.

Do you know what would cause this? I spoke to a tyre centre and they said it's apparently common with some run flat tyres. There is decent tread on the outside of the tyres but the inside is almost bald.

All of the tyres on the car are currently Dunlop SP Sport 9000 (205/45/R17). Both of the rears obviously need replacing. However, the only tyre my local centre do is the Continental sport contact 3's. I know it's good practice to have all 4 tyres matching, but would it really matter if she had Continental's on one axle and Dunlop's on the other? From what I've heard the Continental's are better and in an ideal world she would replace all 4 tyres but the Dunlops still have plenty of tread and she can't afford to replace all 4 right now.

Lastly, should she put the new tyres on the front or rear?

Any advice would be appreciated.
 
Thanks. Out of interest why is it recommended to put the new tyres on the rear? I think the Continential's are better than the Dunlops so I thought they'd be better up front. The Dunlops currently on the front still have plenty of tread.
 
The general consensus is that whilst driving most people can recover if the front of the car loses grip, but most would struggle if the back of the car slid out. If the better tyres are on the back, it is less likely to slide the back out.
 
The reason the middle of the tread has run down is that the tyre pressures were too high so the tyre doesn't run in its true shape. I had the same thing with Goodyear NCT 5 runflats although I caught it early enough to correct the pressures and got even wear in the end. Its worth getting a tyre pressure gauge as I found my local shell garage was about 15psi out on their gauge. The SportContact 3 SSR is about the best runflat there is at the moment. Great grip in both wet and dry and the most comfortable as well.
 
I would never fit runflats on my MINI again, the car came with them and they were awful. I run T1R's on mine.

Theres plenty of non runflat tyres out there that are much better and usually cheaper. Some tyres will refuse to fit non runflats but me and 1000's of other MINI drivers have done it, we pass our MOT's and there not an issue.
 
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