I finally decided this week to order new tires – swimming against the tide, I chose 205/55WR-16 Avon Tech M550 A/S tires.
I was swayed by the excellent ratings on TireRack across the board – traction in wet, dry and snow conditions all rate well, as does comfort; the tire is not available in 205/50 so I chose the 205/55 in the belief that there won’t be an issue – I can’t imagine a tire diameter about 0.3″ bigger than stock being a significant difference, and opinions on the NAM tire forum confirmed this.
The tires arrived today, so I headed down to MINI of Peabody to get them installed (an extra benefit of having MoP do the work – as well as my confidence in them – is that GBMINI#3 is once again clean!)
I took some old and new tire comparison shots, to see if the wheels were significantly bigger – and I really don’t see any cause for concern! Remember also I was going from an undersized tire (205/50 is smaller diameter than the stock 195/55); the change going from a stock runflat 195/55 to the 205/55 would be even less significant:
If you want to compare different wheel/tire sizes, a great website is the Wheel & Tyre Bible which has masses of information including a calculator that shows the 205/55R16 being 5mm radius more than the 195/55R16 (the Indycar team partly owned by David Letterman! Good luck Bryan – though I’m sure you won’t need it 🙂
M&I / GBMINI 
The compound will determine how they handle in the dry, but you can easily see by the side siping they will be much better in the snow.
Do you mean Bryan..I hope not. With Gary leaving the “front line”, Bryan was my contact for service issues, and I will strongly miss him. I hope there will be yet another tech as caring has him.
That’s exciting about Bryan…I’m sad that he’s leaving, but excited for him as it is a great opportunity with a great team. I agree Josh, I’ll miss having him as a contact…he was super helpful to me with my recent engine troubles, and I always loved talking F1 & racing with him.
Yes – I didn’t realize Bryans spelling. Luckily Bob, Kevin and Dave are also long time techs and excellent; I don’t know the newer guys so well, but I’m sure if Gary picked them, they will be good too.
way to go ian! i have had the same tyres for nearly 8000 miles and LOVE them – you won’t be dissapointed.
cheers – drew
Ian, are these non RFs? Where are Avons made? Anyone OEM them? And, do you mind sharing the cost/tire? Haven’t really heard of them.
Where’s Gary going, the “leaving the front line” comment by Josh? Hopefully still with MoP?
TIA,
Chris
I am looking at getting the same tires as well for the same reason. People who have bought them from Tirerack rate them very well. Although I am looking to get 215/45 17 for my R99s.
Chris,
Gary is not “going away” – he’s just behind a desk more these days (although with Bryan leaving, he said he’d be out on the floor more again).
Avon tyres are – as far as I know – British made near Bristol (county of Avon); as well as the good ratings from other TireRack users, the price is only $80 per!
I will tell you that at the moment, their grip is AWFUL! I could feel the car sliding around on 50mph corners (!) and I could smell hot rubber after a 15 minute drive.
But presumably once the tires “bed in” they will be much better – I hope!
ah, thanks Ian.
Well, sure hope they “bed in” soon, will be curious to hear the long-term thoughts..I must say I like the price 😉
cheers,
chris