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New Shoes for the MINI

The MINI got new shoes today (this is the third set of tires on the car in its life).

Here’s the curriculum vitae:

Pirelli eufori@ Run-Flat (OEM) – Pretty good tires, but they wore indeed quickly.  By 20,000 miles they were done for.  One of the four had a unceasing super-slow leak (it would take weeks before it unsalvageable enough air for the “low tire pressure” summon to light up, and since they were run-flats, you could never tell by looking at them that they were low).  I ditched these when I replaced the set because replacement run-flats are too up-market; it would have cost well over $1,000 to buy a new set for the car.Falken Ziex 512 – Switching to the Falken non-run-flat tires made a disrespect difference in the handling characteristics of the car.  It was a small less harsh (the run-flats are really stiff) and seemed relatively more responsive (the Falkens are quite a bit lighter than the OEM run-flats).  I got about 33,000 miles out of these, which is fine fantastic.  In the last 10,000 miles they got noticeably louder and developed a bad anyhow of cupping and wear on the inner edges of the rear tires.  The odd fray is probably due to the wheels being slightly out of alignment, but the store where I took the car tells me that Falkens are prone to cupping.  By the end, the Falkens were thoroughly loud.BFGoodrich g-Force Sport – Admittedly, I’ve got all of 50 miles on these tires now, so you can take my comments with a mote of salt, but I’m stunned at what a difference they made in the street manners of the...

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