I had another flat tire today. Skip to the bottom if you just need information on the lug bolts BMW uses on the 2005 MINI Cooper. Or, read ahead to hear how difficult it was for me to find this information on the Internet! Anyways, as always, the tire pressure sensor indicator lit up before I knew anything was wrong. I carefully drove into a parking lot, took out the tire pressure gauge I carry in the trunk and measured 16 psi. Note to those of you who do not regularly check your tire pressures: the tire should measure 30 psi (when cool not after being driven) and it did not visibly look flat nor even low on air.
In any event, I put on the spare tire and drove the punctured tire to Canadian Tire to have it patched. As I was in a rush and needed my car, I told them I would leave while they repaired the wheel and come back later to put it on myself. But first I would need a torque wrench and an appropriate sized socket. I would also need to know the torque specifications for the lug bolts. I used Google to search for this information, but I guess I wasn't using the correct search queries, because I came up with nothing useful.
So here's the information (torque spec according to BMW Toronto's service advisor):
| size | 12 x 1.5 |
| head | 17 mm hex |
| grade | 10.9 |
| torque spec. | 90 ft lbs |