MY experience: Okay, so I just went out for a little drive to the grocery store and wow...
It was drizzling a little bit, a very little bit. I had the wipers on auto and they only come on every 10 seconds or so. Now, everytime I pulled away from the light in first gear, the tires would lose grip and the DSC would come on. In addition, it would slide to the outside when turning. Now, here's the kicker, my tires only have 3,500. I had noticed before in the dry that my tires were beginning to make a bit of noise when I took turns quickly, but I figured it was still okay.

A bit of tire history: I've tried launching the car a handful of times, definitely less than five. In addition, I make some spirited runs around the hills around Austin and I typically drive aggressively, but not so much that I've been pulled over for it.

Anyways, what I want to know is if this is typical. How is it possible that my tires can have so little grip with only 3500 miles? If this is the sort of wear on the OEM runflats, I would feel much more comfortable with non-runflats as I wouldn't feel like I might spin out whenever I take it out in the rain.

P.S. Anybody know what the trick is with a penny to check tread depth?

 

Very light rain + asphalt streets in Austin = driving on ice...

Went to school in Austin, experienced the loveliness that is the Austin asphalt. IMHO, it's downright dangerous. The run-flats aren't the best in the wet, but they're not bad, either. It's the oil and crap in the asphalt coming up to the surface, with not enough rain to wash it away...

http://www.tirerack.com/a.jsp?a=EZ3&url=/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=51

Click for the penny test...

 

Okay, well maybe that explains it. We're also short some 10 inches of rain this year so maybe all the oil and crap has just accumulated.

Edit: I just did the penny test and I have about 6/32" of tread depth left.

Edit: Go Longhorns!

 

First off, drizzling is worse than pouring when it comes to driving in the wet...especially if it just started raining and the oil on the road hasn't washed away. The OEM runflats are known to have a short life but even spirited drivers see over 10k miles on them. We made it over 25k on the fronts without rotating. How exactly do you launch? If your launching hard enough to break the front wheels loose (even in the rain), your probably revving up too high or giving it too much gas. As a matter pf fact, now that I see an LSD in your sig, I'm almost positive your launching too hard.

As for noise, our Euphori@'s did get noisy as they aged but a lot of it was due to the fact that they needed to be re-balanced. The tires should do have wear indicators in the grooves. If the tread is worn down to the indicators, they should be replaced.

Also, although MINI doesn't recommend rotating, it's something you could do yourself if you have a jack and some stands. It'll really help extend the life of your tires (although you'll have to buy four instead of two when they're all worn). After that, I'd recommend ditching the runflats and getting some conventional high performance tires. Just leave a compressor/gunk combo in the boot.

 

Which tires do you have my 17 inch Dunlop 9000s are great in the wet?

 

No, hahahahahahah, I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, the part about the launches was to give a history of what I've done on the tires. I'm not launching in the rain... I was just doing normal-type acceleration.

I guess what worried me about the loss of grip was that I've never had it happen just by accelerating or by taking a turn on my '01 Acura TL or '98 Altima in Austin.

I'm running on the Dunlops that come with the x-lites. Sport 5000A or 3000A? I'm not sure about the differences between the two, which one I'm running and I'm too lazy to go check.

On the topic of launching, what is the correct method? revving to 3000, slipping the clutch and feeding in the gas?

 

My OEM non runflats have always been good for me.
My snows have worked very well.
Drive for the conditions, most tires work well.

 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not accelerating hard. I'm just accelerating and the tires start slipping in 1st gear at around 2000 to 2500 RPM. I don't exactly categorize that in the leadfoot category. The cornering was a bit more aggressive, but a good 10-15 slower than I would've done in the dry.

 

My 16-inch high performance Dunlop runflats have been so good that when I needed a second set of tires, I got a second set of them. If the DSC kicked in, perhaps you need to re-think your approach to driving in wet weather conditions before calling the OEM tires dangerous. I tend to turn my DSC off in daily driving, but if it is raining or snowing, I absolutely keep it on.

 

Funny, I am also in Austin, and went out to pick up dinner a little while ago. I always experience this after a light drizzle here for some reason. Especially happened today since it hasn't rained in like two months

 

Hook 'em Horns... and Austin streets suck...

What really always made me nervous driving in Austin was getting stuck in that light drizzle on my motorcycle... Talk about pucker factor!

 

Maybe the rest of North America has better streets than Austin.

 

That I'd doubt.

Come to NE Ohio and experience the MINIvatage of manuevering around the potholes and low manhole covers! I went to 16" snows for the winter just because I'm not parking it just because it's a little bad out. I'll return to the 17" runflats in the spring assuming I can finish painting the Slites black.

I did notice in Florida the roads were slick even on a dry day. I leased a convertible MINI for the experience and the tires were always losing grip.

 

Maybe California and Canada then.

 

i think u'd be right on that too... i ran ds5000 on my MCS for about 6000 km, ran 2 wet autocross on them and they were horrid, they were noisy, and i complained about them just about anytime i get into the car...

i ditched them for bridgestone re750s, which defenitly is a step-up in wet grip... now i run kumho ecsta spts...

 

I can back up the statements about oil and crud making the road slippery in the misty rain.

 

yeah, I feel ya on the dangerous part, rinning the stock 17" all-seasons, I've been satisfied w/ the grip mainly because the rest of the sport suspension makes up for what the tires aren't giving me. They are spectacular in downpours, had the over here in FL, three hurricances handled great through all three (I was on the edge of the hurricane zone so I wasn't really worried about debris). But then a few nights ago we got some evening rain(first rain in 1 week +), I go out the roads are still damp, use an on ramp half way through the 270 degree banked trun the back end kicked out, 20MPH sooner than where it would on dry conditions same turn, then the front decided to go with it and I was heading straight for the ditch, mashed the brakes, shut-off the ASC, and I was on my way thank go nobody was behind me. 17,800 miles, moderate driving in the past four months. I'll be done withthe warranty before they wear out, so I'll switch to regular prefomance tires as soon as my road hazard protection is done.

 

Now I've never been to Austin, but chicago is by far the worst I've seen, there is a strech of highway just finished w/ constrution, has waves built into it, one NAMer asked if this was normal in a thread on this site, dealer and onther drivers confirmed, that s how the road has been since it was worked on. Potholes all over, big enough to swallow a MINI. There used to be the saying of two seasons in chicago, winter and construction season, well maybe its el nino but last few years construction is year round. I used to have a min. 20 mile commute in the chicago area, I knew all of the roads in the subdivisons, I would travel and extra 10-15 miles half an hour quicker because I knew were to go to avoid all the traffic from road work, was up there for the holidays they even shutdown my short-cuts for road work, they are tearing up the good roads and making them crappy and leaving the crappy ones alone . Does that qualify as a rant??? sorry I'm done now.

 

I've lost traction twice on my normal daily commute to work. 1 without incident, 1 with some minor suspension/wheel damage. Both occured when there was a light dew out, and thus a light coating of water on top of the road tar/oil.

All season runflats work great in the dry, rain, snow... all good so far. But when the road is just a wee bit wet, watch out, because there goes your traction.

 

Tires? You live in the land of the world's greasiest roads. I've lived in San Antonio twice and have thousands of miles in and around SA (and the hill country) on both BMWs and Ducati's. It ain't the tires, it's the slick pavement, especially in the wet. Worst grip I've ever driven/riden on in my life. Absolutely scary at times.

 

Just to chime in: I haven't had any grip problems with my Dunlop runflats (SP Sport 9000 DSSTs). At least none that I attribute to the tires. As others have pointed out, it's the 5-10 minutes after it first starts drizzing that's so dangerous, especially here in Austin where we aren't getting much rain. So when it finally does get a little wet, there's months worth of oil and grease on the road to loosen up and get under your tire.

Unfortunately for me, I live on 45th street, currently torn up to hell and gone for construction, and that's eating my tires! But that's a topic for another day...

Cheers,
Ben