Power Spoke Wheels Resale

I always keep the stock parts that come off the car. Even though you and a lot of car enthusiasts might like the look of your car, when you sell it, the car reaches a wider audience for car buyers that just want a stock car. Plus, you can sell the aftermarket wheels and recover some of the money back. In my case, I had a 2019 Mini Cooper S, the wheels I had (NM Engineering) will carry over to my SE.

 

I’ve been looking to buy a set but never see them come up for sale…

 

I really don't need yet another set of wheels in my garage, but I must admit that I have considered picking up a set of Power Spokes to round out my highway efficiency test results (and possibly use for road trips).

I certainly don't want to pay MSRP. I've never seen any used ones up for sale, either.

 

I like my Power Spokes so much that I keep them in the basement where they are safe from vicious curbs. I put them on only when I'm showing off my SE at car meets, such as Drive Electric Week events. The rest of the year my SE rides on 4 of my 8 Loop Spokes (4 summer, 4 winter).

 

Where are you located? I'm looking for a set of 17" wheels but live in Honolulu.

 

Ditto, I would be interested if you're nearby. I've been checking craigslist and facebook marketplace, but no 17s have come up near me.

 

I'm sure you know Ebay has 17" MINI wheels. Here's a $530 set I found right away.

 

Plus $130 for shipping and the inability to visually inspect them before purchase.

edit: Oh, I see, you already factored in the shipping cost.

 

Of course, local is better, but I've been lucky with two sets of Loop Spoke rims purchased on eBay. High-res photos increased my comfort factor, but not as much as would seeing them in person.

 

There's a set of Power Spokes on the local Craigslist for $1200. A bit spendy for me, though.

 

The images imply that the tires come with the rims.

 

I run 16" loop spokes for winter and 17" black tentacles for summers. The energetic yellow center cap is sacrificed to the winter sets and self-leveling floating center caps go to the summer set.

 

Hopefully when I get my car I can get some power spoke wheels.. I was torn on wheels when I ordered the car but in some ways I regret not getting them.

 

You should be able to order them through the parts department of the dealer. That's what I did to get my Spectre Grey Revolites for winter, but they had to come from Germany and it took something like three weeks. Definitely not cheap, I think I paid about $2500 for the four wheels and four tires, plus TPMS and mounting.

 

I think the Power Spokes from the parts dept are well over $3,000 + tyres iirc?
Certainly way too much for me for a set of 17s…

 

There are obviously a lot of interested potential buyers for your Power Spokes if you decide to sell them, @Minicris, so I hope my take doesn’t p*ss off any of them. (Heck, I’d be interested in a set of Power Spokes for the right price, too!) But if I were in your place and I knew for sure that I was going to sell my ‘22 as soon as my ‘23 comes in, I wouldn’t even consider selling the OEM wheels because the ‘22 is going to be valued higher with its stock wheels.

I would also be scouting around for competing bids on the car when that time comes, and one of the standard questions pretty much all the online car-buying companies (Carvana, Vroom, et al) ask is whether you’ve made any modifications to the car you want to sell. I don’t know how much less you’d get for the car with aftermarket wheels, or if some prospective buyers/online car dealers might pass on a car with aftermarket wheels, but why risk it? I’d keep it as stock as possible to maximize both its value and the interest of potential buyers.

 

When I sold my 2019 Cooper S, I took out almost all of the modifications that included a cat back exhaust, carbon fiber intake, piggyback computer, lowering springs, and the aftermarket wheels and tires. The only thing I left was the rear NM Engineering swaybar. The rear subframe needs to be lowered to install or remove it and I was too lazy to do it. Selling a stock car to the dealer is so much easier. I posted the car in modified form on another forum and had tons of questions, since I did not want to deal with the tire kickers and all of the emails, I put it back to stock, sold it to a local dealer and sold the parts I took off. I ended up getting more money in the end.

I also put all of the settings I changed in Bimmercode back to the way the car was originally. One thing I forgot to do was disable the Mini app, I figured once BMW found out it was sold, they would shut off my access. The car is still at the dealer but I have access to it in the Mini app still.

 

I ordered the Corona Spoke rims (later renamed Power Spoke) because they were designed specifically and exclusively for the SE (and available only with the Iconic trim). Long before the SE was unveiled, these aerodynamic, asymmetric rims appeared in MINI's concept drawings and on the MINI Electric concept car. After years of waiting for MINI to finally produce a production version of the MINI-E, these rims had become an integral part of the design in my mind.

The Power Spoke rims are so beautiful that I planned to remove them shortly after my SE was delivered. Months before that great day, I purchased some used Loop Spoke wheels/tires on eBay. Those Loop Spokes replaced the Power Spokes after I had shown my SE to all my friends and then to fellow EV enthusiasts at a September, 2020, Drive Electric Week meet in Kalamazoo.

The thought of the Power Spokes' Energetic Yellow paint scraped off onto an undeserving concrete curb devastated me. So my Power Spokes live in my basement 364 days a year, finding their way back on my SE only for Drive Electric Week meets. I purchased MINI's Power Spoke balancing accessory and a frequent topic of discussion at these meets is how MINI's designers forced the engineers to develop such an accessory to make balancing these rims possible.

It drives my wife crazy to see me spend more than an hour dragging the Power Spokes and my 3-ton hydraulic jack out of the basement to put the rims on the SE only to take them off again the next day. It drives her even crazier that I have 3 sets of wheels/tires for one car. Fortunately, she loves driving our SE, which tends to soften her criticism.

 

I'm curious to see what a 2022+ SE can achieve with power spoke wheels and optimal tires. So far it's 5.43mi/kWh (mid mode, 17" black tentacle w/ RFT Cinturato P7 summer tires) in sunny 86F weather with A/C.