I found a 08 2 door clubman with a six speed with high millage (150 k) suppose to run good have no issue and overall looks to be a well cared for adult owned vehical. Price is 2.5 k. I know very little about these. They have kind of grown on me as time has gone on. I know I don’t like doing water pumps on these. I know the couple I have driven were fun little skate boards. Fun around town!!!!
So what say you all
They've gotten so cheap that they're simultaneously tempting and terrifying. I'm sure they're awful if they depreciate that quickly.
Yep, fun as hell to drive. I had an '08 S. It made you smile every time you took it out of the driveway. Is this a non-S I presume? They're more reliable than the S, but that ain't saying much. Never had a problem with mine, because I only kept it a year or so, but they're reputation is just a notch or two above a BiTurbo (OK, I'm exaggerating, but you get the point).
Love driving them. Remember something about cracked coolant expansion tanks in the early models? Other than that, don't know too many bad things about 'em.
Right now I'm using a '06 MCS as a daily driver. Other than having typical rattles of a first gen MINI, it's been OK. Of course, I've only had it since July. I also have a lot of experience tearing these cars apart and putting them back together, so there is very little I fear with them.
I have a friend selling a very nice '08 Clubman S, but the asking price is a fair bit more than $2500. He replaced it with an older convertible model. As pure driver's cars, the earlier (R50/52/53) model is generally preferred although the second gen models is a better "car".
All of the generations have their quirks. It just depends on which ones you're willing to live with.
My mom has a 08-09 Super Cooper and it was a ton of fun to drive but started falling apart at 120k. Little bits like trim and windows stopped working normal BWM stuff. My wife had a standard 2012 mini and the only good things about it was good gas millage and easy to park. But it also had an auto trans, it was the base model, its gone now thank goodness!
Can be very quick and fun but reliability is the main known issue/concern for me
I asked a local foreign auto specialist repair shop about Mini's. His quote was: "Mini's with differed maintenance keep the lights on around here." He says maintenance and repair get kicked down the road because parts are expensive and most repairs and even some routine maintenance begins with "remove the front clip" in the shop manual.
I'd need to see a pretty thick maintenance binder before I'd go anywhere near a low $/high mile Mini.
I remember someone on here has one that he's had nothing but trouble with. I can't recall the user or find his thread. Wish I could!
Had an 05 s. More fun to drive than anything else I've ever been in. I hated the thing. I want another one. Had more than 7k worth of work done under the (thankfully purchased) extended warranty. I don't know if the r56 was any better.
I'm always a different voice in this conversation. I used to daily an '06 S, and now daily a '12 S, and my experiences have been very different. I haven't had much trouble at all with mine. Sure it's more than with a Honda, but very much on par with a BMW. In fact, many of the pieces that fail on the R56 are almost directly off other BMW models. The R53s don't seem to share as much and I think they are somewhat more reliable for the later years, and a bit more fun than the R56 and later MINIs. If you are used to driving a German car of any flavor, then the MINI is not much different.
Like other Germans however, if you neglect them, they can be problematic. I haven't found parts pricing to be that much, even compared to some cars like Toyotas, but given their design, if you pay someone to do the work, that's where the bills can show up. It's pretty compact in there and to change much of anything, you have to start removing parts, many of them large and in the way. Even getting at the oil filter is a bit of a pain.
Saying that, there isn't much that compares to them for a daily in town driver. One of the issues I am having in shopping for a new toy, is that compared to the MINI, most of them simply are boring. I remember getting out of the MINI and test driving a S2000, which wasn't a good idea. The MINI felt better everywhere.
I keep hearing stories about all the issues, but I've never experienced them to any real degree after a combined 5 years of ownership and 65k miles.
Drove one of the early ones for 24hrs and liked the handling but didn't like the low roofline of the front windshield. Prior to that my poor ass had only driven 80s goldfish bowls so there's that. I seem to remember somebody here talking about mushrooming front shock towers - if that's true whatever it even is boggles my mind. 
I have a mechanic friend who works full-time at a BMW shop, and he says the Mini Coopers are a total cash cow with how much they love to leak.
Just helped my buddy swap an alternator on his lady's mini. Had I known that would involve removing most of the car I would have told him to get stuffed....
I vote nay.
dannyzabolotny said:I have a mechanic friend who works full-time at a BMW shop, and he says the Mini Coopers are a total cash cow with how much they love to leak.
There is something to that. Mine has had the oil pan leak, the crank sensor leak x 2 and is now leaking more than ever from I know not where. It better not be that stupid crank sensor again. I am dreading taking that front end off again.
Of course this is still much better than my Saab leaking experience...
Mushrooming shock towers are no biggie. Just whack them with a 2x4 until flat again and install an aftermarket reinforcement.
Turbo's from 2007-2010 have an issue with timing chains. Tend to fail unexpectedly and at low miles effectively grenading the engine. Jury is out whether the non-turbo's from those same years are affected too, or if you just hear more about it from the MCS owners. There were revised tensioners, etc., released during the run but most say that it was not really fixed until they put in updated engines in 2011.
In any case, my extensive research into MCS ownership is at least partially responsible for my purchase of a Civic Si.
Bypass all the headaches and buy a Civic Si or a Mazda 3 hatch! 
AClockworkGarage said:Just helped my buddy swap an alternator on his lady's mini. Had I known that would involve removing most of the car I would have told him to get stuffed....
I vote nay.
Eh... To me, that's just one of those things that is surprising at first, and then after you've done it a couple of times, you realize it's not a big deal. I've had the MFE panel in "service mode" so many times I don't even think about it. It also helps to have the MFE extender pins that hold the panel away from the engine for easier access. When I made my first sets 8 years ago, they were stupid expensive from MINI (over $100), but I've noticed the price has dropped considerably ($58 from ECS Tuning). Still a lot of $ for a couple of pins, but better.
Once you get used to the quirks, these cars aren't that bad to work on. I'll take one of these over an E30 which seems like it was designed by 4 different groups who never talked to each other.
Unevolved and Mrs. Unevolved gave up on one because they couldn't figure out how to fix it.
Unevolved was project manager on a really good FSAE car. Mrs. Unevolved raced shifter karts.
If they ran out of patience, how will you avoid doing so?
In reply to chaparral :
I'm not sure what you are trying to say. R53 or later car?
Generally, it depends on the kind of problems you have. Mechanical issues with these cars aren't all that hard to deal with. Electrical or computer issues can be a different story, but that holds true for any modern car. It is a BMW... and German... which can be prone to electrical gremlins. I often joke Lucas engineers didn't die - they crossed the Channel to work for Bosch.
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