It's Summer time and I STILL want a Mini Cooper. There seems to be page after page of problems inherent to the car, lots of info on bad automatic transmissions and such but I'm only interested in a standard trans. They seem to have the WORST reputation, but I've read that many of the fails could be avoided with diligent maintainance, frequent oil and filter changes and such and simply not abusing the little car.
Wondering what model to look at, what extras are best and worst? Any info, comments, suggestions would be HUGELY appreciated !
Tyler H
UltraDork
5/18/17 12:14 p.m.
I have a major problem with the Mini Cooper. In non-supercharged or turbo-charged form, the Mini has 115hp and 110ft/lbs. I have 197hp and 214 ft/lbs. I should slaughter them in H-Street, but I am within thousands of a second, sometimes ahead, sometimes behind. I know that I am the best driver in the world and I never make a mistake, so there is clearly a magic unicorn living in all Minis that gives it super powers. That is against both the letter and spirit of SCCA rules.
DAMN ! !
What a big fat gyp ! Looks like none of the versions or years is safe to own without a dedicated bank account to cover regularly occurring repairs.
So stylish, so affordable, yet SO much trouble !
Thanks for the info/warnings/etc.
TeamEvil wrote:
Wondering what model to look at, what extras are best and worst? Any info, comments, suggestions would be HUGELY appreciated !
Look for 1:24 scale models...they'll give you the least problems.
I loved my R56S when I had it. I didn't have it long enough to have any issues with it, but even mine had already had the "death rattle" before I bought it...and it only had something like 25k miles on it. I'm sure diligent maintenance and all kinds of upkeep help, but they're still trouble prone cars and for the money you'd spend fixing/maintaining it, I'd rather get something else.
I'd trust the normally aspirated 05-06 manual and 2011-2013 manual MINIs to be reliable enough as a daily driver.
I've said this a lot on here, but I had an '06 R53 S for years with hardly any issues at all, and the person I sold it too also has had almost no issues. It's around 140k now I think.
My current daily is a '12 R56 S, and so far so good on it too. I will say a coil pack went bad earlier this year, and a rather large pot hole did in the rf tire and strut. I replaced the stock units with Koni FSDs for a MASSIVE improvement, and I do mean MASSIVE.
I've got no issues at all using it as a daily driver. If you've ever owned a BMW, it's all familiar.
I will say one thing on the death rattle, there is another rattle that often gets mistaken for it in the R56. My understanding is that it is a somewhat shared motor with Peugeot, and they have their share of knocking noises. My mechanic compared mine to one with a real death rattle, and there is a lot of differences. A lot of people think they have it, but don't.
My father had an R53 S for about 70K miles with only one electrical glitch that was fixed under warranty. He sold it to a good friend, who has had it for about 6 months. I guess the electric engine fan quit working, so he'll have to address that. Unfortunately I believe he'll have to take the entire front of the car apart to complete the job.
They aren't all bad.
I remember the early cars had the fan for the p/s rack cooler die causing hte racks to puke. That wasn't cheap... then again I'm used to GM and Korean cars so parts and repairs are usually cheap and quick. Ntohing about a mini is cheap or quick except the driving experience. A hoot to drive but IMO not worth the headaches.
Tyler H
UltraDork
5/18/17 4:09 p.m.
I had 2 PS pump replacements, a window regulator, a fistful of windshields, a mushroomed strut tower, HID ballasts, and a harmonic balancer.
All of that is DIY-able, except the windshield. Strut tower was fixed with a 2x4, hammer, and Ireland Engineering plates.
Taking the whole front off the car isn't that bad, once you're resigned to doing it. If you can't figure out how to get at something, it's because the front end needs to come off.
Sorry to repeat myself, but if you want a MINI then there is only one. If you want a fun, tossable hatchback, then you have a lot of other options. I don't regret owning it.
It really needed lighter wheels and a limited slip diff.
Tyler H wrote:
I had 2 PS pump replacements, a window regulator, a fistful of windshields, a mushroomed strut tower, HID ballasts, and a harmonic balancer.
This is the difference between BMW/Mini people and everyone else. This is "OK", but I've had cars for 10 years that had nothing close to that many issues and was still a little angry at some of the repairs because I thought they were too soon. (brakes every 30k for instance) Mini/BMW people accept these faults as no big deal.
My guess is y'all don't know any better 
