NON OEM wheels & tires (wider)

[vreihen]

Not sure I'd want to try the smaller Mini Cooper wheel on a car that OEM's a 19 though, you'd get that 'Ricer' look, and you'd be dragging the battery pack on the pavement every time you hit a bump. :mrgreen:

Fair point! I was thinking that it is simple enough to go down to 17" and increase the sidewall height. A quick search of the Tire Rack catalog shows what someone else has already pointed out...that the only tires in those sizes are only rated as donut spares. Although I do have a set of four donut spares for my race car in the hauler that I used to win a bet on a snowy hill climb, I don't think that I would want to run them daily on a street-driven car.

What really scares me is that Tire Rack's stash of i3 Blizzaks is showing as 2015 stock. Stale/dried out rubber issues aside, I'm wondering if Bridgestone is even making i3 winter tires any more?????

 

[jadnashuanh]

If you want a better winter tire, get a set of the Nokian R3's. FWIW, I wouldn't buy old stock tires, and especially not winter ones.

FWIW, most winter tires are made in the summer, so IF you found any now, they'd at least be from last year. They usually start to show up in September or so from the recent stock. Also note, since they aren't made all year long, if they run out, they run out, so it's best to order them early. A reputable dealer should be able to tell you when they'll become available.

 

[vreihen]

I'm familiar with the winter tire production cycles, and all of my vehicles coincidentally have state safety inspection stickers that expire in October so that I can use the next winter's new/fresh tires to pass the tread depth test. I just leave them on all summer, since I have the race car for warm-weather performance driving and can live with half-tread snow tires on the streets in the summer.

I used to run Hakkapeliittas on my cars a long time ago (before I started racing), but changed over to Blizzaks because none of the tire/contingency/event support sponsors carried Nokian. When you're buying a new round of race tires every 4-6 weeks during the 9-month race season, let's just say that the tire prices are low enough from the contingency sponsors where you don't want to shop retail for your street tires.

I'll have to check with our local tire shop to see if they can special-order Nokian tires, since there are no local authorized dealers. Anyone know how many miles they last on an i3 in year-round driving? Longer than the Bridgestone Ecopias?????

 

[jadnashuanh]

The only winter tire rated also for use all-seasons that I'm aware of is made by Nokian (WR G4), but they do not make one to fit the i3. By the very nature of a winter tire, with rare exceptions, when it gets hot, they wear out fairly fast.

 

[Boxbrownie]

Stupid question - Did BMW really use a different hub size on the i3 and Mini? Both appear to be using 5x112 bolt patterns from a quick web search that I did. I assume that they are both hub-centric, so the only reason why they couldn't be crossed over (wheel offsets and rubbing aside) would be that the center hub were different sizes between the two. The 2015+ Mini appears to even be using the same hub diameter and lug bolts, hence why I'm scratching my head.....

Basic dimensions are the same for wheel fitment but the hubs will be engineered differently therefore not the same, Mini has front hubs designed to take a driveshaft, the i3 just has RWD type hubs without the facility for driveshafts.

 

[ted99]

Back to my original post. I'd like to have a smaller diameter wheel with a taller and wider section tire which is available from more than one manufacturer. The new e-mini MAY have just such a wheel and it MAY fit. I'm looking forward to finding out.

 

[ronbot]

The upcoming Mini Electric is reported to use the complete i3 drivetrain, except it's to be FWD, rather than RWD. It'll be interesting to see if it's wheels will bolt up to the i3 hubs. I suspect that they will if it's the same drivetrain, but offsets may be a problem. Looking forward to what the wheel/tire combo is for the Mini Electric and whether it's an improvement over the i3's tires. I'd really like to see a more "normal" set of sizes so that we would have a choice in tires.

Oh dang... stop it!! I've been dreaming about making an i3 BEV AWD... now you just told me something that's very dangerous for me to know!... that there may be a complete FWD i3-based drive system available in the near future... as soon as they start selling, and people start wrecking them. Time to start saving my money and making plans to buy a couple of BMW-family wrecked cars to "glue together".

 

[vreihen]

Time to start saving my money and making plans to buy a couple of BMW-family wrecked cars to "glue together".

Why not just work with what's already available from wrecked i3's? :twisted: It doesn't seem like a crazy amount of CNC time to cut a few billets into front steering uprights with hub holes for the driveshafts:

Getting the front i3 motor to sit low enough in the existing frame to have the driveshafts level at rest may be an issue, and I'm guessing that the battery pack isn't going to like being discharged at twice the designed rate feeding two motors with a lead foot.

I suspect that BMW's choice of narrow wheels and tight fenders makes retrofitting hub-based electric motors on the front wheels into a bigger challenge than it needs to be. Factoring in the weight shift to the rear wheels on launch, smaller hub-based electric motors would probably be practical for an AWD retrofit (assuming unsprung weight is not a concern).

In case you've never seen weight transfer in stop motion, here's a 5,000 RPM clutch pedal side-step launch of my AWD race car caught by an event photographer. Notice how the rear wheel and suspension is squatting and cambered in, while the front suspension and wheel are really light:

I think that a 50/50 split of power is a waste on an AWD car...at least for maximum acceleration applications.....

 

[RostHaus]

Are you by chance a AW or QWer?

I'm an old MK1 TT owner. I had a 2002 225 coupe with a Del Rio Stage 3 kit

 

[vreihen]

I looked at AW once, and everyone there was more interested in clay bars and car shows than motorsports. Not my cup of tea.....

 

[RostHaus]

A gotcha, AW has changed a lot.

All the Motorsports enthusiasts left AW for QW, when it got bought out and changed formats, around 2010.
We used to do tons of track days back then.

 

[milika]

So any final thought on tire/rim size?
Can we use smaller rims? From Mini Electric perhaps?

Regards