White Roof Radio #255

I’ve had awful experiences with the pressure loss scenario, though it seems to be worst in the front left for me. Then again, my runflats have seen many miles.

Todd, I have left both of our runflat equipped MINIs parked for 8-10 days at a time and haven’t noticed the massive tire air pressure loss that you experienced upon your return from MTTS. Probably I have seen as much as 3-4 pounds air loss as both cars are parked in an open garage.

In regards to the OEM runflats, our Clubman S came equipped with 195/55 R16 V87 Goodyear Excellence RunOnFlat tires mounted onto Bridgespoke rims. They are very good street tires but they only have a thread wear rating of 200. The Goodyear Excellence are second generation runflats (EH2+) with humps on each side of the rim. Much better OEM tires than the 1sg gen runflats fitted in the R50, R52 and R53 MINIs.

My 2005 R53 S is currently wearing Continental ContiPro SSR 195/55/R16 V87 runflats mounted on 16″ S-Winder wheels. I am beyond pleased with these Continental runflats. They originally were takeoffs from someone that bought a new Clubman S. The rims mounted perfectly in my R53 with no problems whatsoever. The Contis are also second generation EH2+ runflats, and in my honest opinion, they are superior tires (And cheaper too for some reason) to the Goodyear Excellence runflats in my Clubman. Very sticky tires in both dry and wet pavement, excellent cornering ability (They don’t flex or screech at all or as much as the original Dunlop SP5000 1st gen runflats my car came with), they are not noisy and ride very comfortably too. I also appreciate the thread wear rating of 400, that hopefully, with 4K rotations in between should give me between 35K-40K out of this set. I also had Goodyear Excellence on my R53S prior but I could only get 20K miles out of that set with 4K mile rotation intervals.

Overall, I am very pleased with the Continental ContiPro SSR tires and highly recommend them for anyone wanting to retain their runflats in the R53 and newer MINIs.

My 2002 Cooper CVT came with 15″ Continental ContiProContact radials in size 175/65/R15. Very good tires for fuel economy and ride comfort but lousy for cornering due to the narrow foot print. I later replaced them with the same exact Conti radials but in size 195/60/R15 to the tune of $45 each, brand new. You can’t argue with that.

A co-worker of mine here has a 2007 R52 Cooper Cabrio and came equipped with 175/65/R15 Pirelli Radials. Very interesting choice…

If you order a new Clubman S with the standard 16″ wheel tire package, you will either get Goodyear Excellence or Continental ContiPro SSR 195/55/R16 V87 all season runflats. Of the two, the Continentals are much better than the Goodyears, hands down.