O/t Buying A Mini Cooper S

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

As title I'm looking at MINI Cooper S for the Mrs. Now I know classic Minis inside out, but not had much to do with the new MINI.

 

I've had a read round and there seem to be a few common problems, PAS pumps crapping out, steering column bushes.

 

Basically any info appreciated from anyone who has run or has experience of one of these. We are looking at the Supercharged ones.

 

Thanks

[MrG 3]

what year is the one you're looking at Tom?

[Moz_Goodwood 0]

personally i wouldn't buy a car i possibly couldn't steer or that catches fire

 

common enough to get on watchdog click here

Edited August 30, 2010 by Moz_Goodwood

[blniasgti 0]

hi,

 

i bought my misses a 54 plate mini cooper s about 3 years ago, i do all the work on the car myself and is very easy to work on, parts aint that cheap but i guess thats what you get with a bmw !!!!

 

it was a fashion based purchase and as womens fashion taste changes every 5 minutes, it ended up sitting around not being used so i have ended up using the car myself as a run around......

 

i enjoy the driving experience of the car with the 17 inch wheels giving it excellent cornering speed and good grip altho the fly-by-wire accelerator takes a while to get used too.....

 

tyres are 120 quid a piece as they are runflats due to no spare wheel as there is a centre exhaust and boot mounted battery......

 

the only modifications i have done are: changed the supercharger pully and belt and chipped the ecu and had it re-mapped so is much quicker now than standard? not sure on by how much as not that bothered on figure but i much quicker than before !

 

i personally have had no problems wiht the car myself but have heard of the problems you have listed: PAS pumps crapping out, steering column bushes. but as usual i suppose it depends on how you drive ? and as i dont drive it as ive nicked it, i cant comment on them....

 

any questions please dont hesitate to contact me

Edited August 30, 2010 by blniasgti

[Tom Fenton 1,542]

In answer, we are looking at the original shape, from about 03-06, depends on what we can find for the right sort of money really.

 

Pretty much any modern car you can name seems to have a horror story about something or other, the PAS pumps is common and well documented so I'm not worried about it.

 

blniasgti thank you for your comments on owning one.

[S33GAV 0]

I owned one for a couple of years, albeit a works, but it's the best car I've owned so far, I loved it. Only problems I had were with it being down on power which turned out to be a faulty bypass valve (which seemed a common problem from what I could tell). As said above the tyres are expensive being runflats, and also pretty stiff - in general the ride is pretty firm, rear seating space is poor and the boot is a joke, but apart from that I'd say it's a superb car to own.

 

Earlier ones were 163bhp and later ones were 170bhp, so I'd look for these - think they were 05 ones. They come with the same supercharger as the JCW models too.

[Henry 1.9GTi 36]

only driven the newer R56 R55 R57 cars and they are pretty lush when specced right. Really do give a good driving experience and all that. The facelift 08/10 cars are in production so you might be able to find an early turbo car for less than you would a few months ago, the engines are so much better. Very good on fuel and go like stink when you want to.

 

Dont get an auto version of the older shape, they are truely awful.

[ravydavy 0]

I had one Tom for about 18 months. Hooooly jesus get ready for the fuel bill. Thats the reason they changed to the turbo to get better consumption. We never had an issue with ours apart from the exhaust breaking early (warranty anyway) The best thing was we only lost a grand in 18 months. So great motoring apart from the fuel. I changed to a 330cd bmw for the missus. great car with better handling and a better engine with more tuning potential. 45mpg too. Talk her into it as i did. My girlfriend loved it way more than the mini.

 

David