OEM Wheels

[Hothouse]

Looking for some advice on changing wheels from 18" down to 17". Got a set of R113 18" jcw and want to go down to 17" R113 as think they look great. Have seen several adverts selling what appears to be non OEM SPEC R113. What might be the risk of going with non-OEM alloys. Where do non-OEM come from. Who is making copies of these relatively rare patterns. All thoughts welcome.

[R53rider]

ash73 said:

Non OEM copies may look similar but probably aren't the same construction, so may be heavier. And MINI wheels aren't exactly lightweight to start with!
Good specialist wheels can save several kg on each corner, first thing I look at in the spec.

Agree 100% Ash. But then many folk are into the look and not the performance/dynamics of their wheels.
I recently went, with the same non-runflat tyres, from 17" OE S-Spokes (11.4kgs each) to Team Dynamics Pro Race 1.2s (around 8kgs each?) so 3kgs x 4 = 12kgs less. It is not just the unsprung weight reduction that matters, there's the gyroscopic effect to get them to turn and getting the mass rolling and stopping. Was amazed how much difference they made.

Maybe the OE wheels are so heavy, and therefore strong, because they are engineered to cope with BMW's obsession with fitting runflats? Which incidentally Gen1 MINIs were never engineered to accomodate as Rover developed it for the most part, not BMW.

I thought I had a crack in a non OE wheel and took it to a proper engineering shop/welder to check it out (not a wheel refurber). There was one of those huge 20" odd BMW wheels on the bench with a huge crack in the rim. Chatting, he said he does the big Beemer alloys all the time and reckoned they were useless wheels. No mate, it's the runflats. Hard as bloody rock, no give or flex in the side wall. Hit a biggy and boom, tyre survives, wheel doesn't. Or if you are really unlucky both.