Who here owns a Mini?

[BuffetSlayer]

Thanks man Really looking forward to having it! I really love small, quick hatchbacks.

Never been in a 5 door but they wont be far off the pace of the 3 I expect. Our 3 door is nippy. It isnt 335i nippy, but the combination of a perky motor and cracking handling make it a hoot to drive. Plus its FWD so useful in the snow!

Cant say im a fan of the 5 door looks but i can see why their practicality makes them popular.

Also, whilst its more expensive to tax its cheaper to insure than the car it replaces (a 1.6 diesel ford focus zetec). Cant get my head around that!

 

[Gaygle]

I had a few Mini related deliveries from the postie today!

First up was a resistor pack to fix my fan. Like every R53 owner ever, my low speed fan does not work, but my high speed fan does - which is a fault caused by a faulty resistor in the resistor pack attached to the fan. It's not really a massive problem as the high speed fan comes on at 112c, meaning the car never overheats or even comes close. The low speed one comes on at 105c and is quieter - so it's just a quality issue more than anything. The cheapest I could find a new fan assembly for was £70, which I thought was very wasteful considering it is literally a £2 resistor that's at fault. So I found this resistor pack on eBay and saw people posting about how much success they'd had with it. It was £8 and from China - so why not!? All it involves is unscrewing the old pack, cutting the existing wires, and soldering the new resistor wires on covered with a bit of heatshrink! Should be a 15 minute job. It unfortunately does mean that I must remove the front of the car to get the fan assembly off, and as it isn't an urgent fix, i'll do this in the Spring/Summer along with the other parts I've got in my box waiting to be fitted.



The second thing was some new brake discs and pads. The ones on there at the moment smell strongly and get hot even when not pushed, and I am pretty sure it has a very budget pad on there (Apec possibly). The discs also have a noticeable lip on them so have likely fallen to below their minimum thickness. So the new Brembo items should do the job - and maybe even resolve the inconsistent brake feel?



The third thing, and what I'm most excited about, is new AD08R tyres in 205/50/16! I got a really good deal off a tyre seller on eBay who sells lots of these and other quality tyres and managed to pick them up for £75 a corner inc next day delivery! The cheapest I could find *anywhere* else was just under £100 a corner, so a real saving there. I'm very excited to see what these can do on track so will be getting them mounted to my hairpins asap ready for another track outing in mid Jan. I have also weighed them and they come in at 9.2KG, so plus the 8KG of the alloys, means that the total weight will be about 17KG per corner. I'll take my 17" S Spokes off soon and weigh them to see what the total weight of them is with the F1A2 still on them.

 

[NoNameNoNumber]

Awesome update. That weight saving is madness, I can only imaging what that might do to the way it drives... Exciting stuff
Tbh I'm not sure if I have ever heard the fan on my Mini... I assume it has just never gotten that hot as the temp gauge has never risen beyond half...

 

[Sparky]

3 in the house , mine looks tiny

 

[Gaygle]

Awesome update. That weight saving is madness, I can only imaging what that might do to the way it drives... Exciting stuff

Going by what everyone else seems to say about the AD08R, they are head and shoulders above even the best road tyres in the dry.

I had my 17" S Spoke alloys off today to do the rear brakes so I measured it: 20.6KG with a Goodyear Eagle F1A2 with 5mm.



So with the new alloys and tyres coming in at 17.2KG there should be 3-3.5kg saved per corner, which isn't bad!

Tbh I'm not sure if I have ever heard the fan on my Mini... I assume it has just never gotten that hot as the temp gauge has never risen beyond half...

Yeah, the needle on mine never moves from the dead centre, but that's because it's a buffered gauge. I was monitoring the temperatures the other day and when I'm driving along it's 89-93c whether i'm hoofing it, or driving sedately. When I stop and park up, the temperature slowly rises, and as it goes passed 105c the low speed quiet fan should gently bring it back down. However mine waits until 112c when it turns on the high speed fan for about 10 seconds which brings down the temperatures very quickly, then the temperatures start rising again and after 30 seconds or so the fan comes on again etc etc

Like I said, it's not causing an issue at all the car doesn't ever overheat, but i quite fancied the challenge of fixing it to make sure it's 100%.

I also got round to replacing the rear brakes today. The discs were original Mini discs and I'm pretty sure they were the ones from the factory! The pads were Apec ones. Note to anyone - never use Apec pads. Got the Brembo ones fitted and the pedal feels very nice during my 3 mile test run. Just got to wait for them to bed in now to see how the pedal feels then. I only had a couple of issues when doing this:

1) The sodding Torx T-50 disc retaining screw - The driver's side one came off quickly with my Ryobi 18v impact wrench (400Nm). However the passenger side one didn't move one bit. The last time this happened, I had to use my breaker bar which ended up shearing the head off and I was desperate that I didn't want that to happen again. I was considering getting the blowtorch out etc, but then I happened to remember I had an old 12v cigarette lighter Liftmaster impact wrench (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Liftmaster-Impact-Digital-Display-Configuration/dp/B0036YHBMM) which I bought about 8 years ago for £30. It isn't really an impact wrench as it doesn't hammer away, it just puts a sudden amount of torque through the bolt (it works in the same way as putting a spanner over a bolt, then using a hammer to bang on the end of the spanner - rather than using a breaker bar which just puts a constant force through it). I used to it when I replaced the all the suspension on my M3 and it undid 10 year old rusted pinch bolts etc without so much as breaking a sweat so I gave it a go. And low and behold - within about 3 seconds it had undone the disc bolt with no drama whatsoever. A proper amazing piece of kit for £30 which has saved me quite a few times.

2) The metal clips on the back of the brake pad which on the piston side, must be clipped over the piston.

 

[Sparky]

My r112 are 10.5kg , not sure about the tyres, curious now though.

 

[TrixiBuG]

Hi Mini owners! I have made a thread here https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18762517 but I was wondering what you guys thought about the following:

05 Mini Cooper Convertible, <22k, 1.6 petrol for <£4,200

I have driven it for about 10 mins last night, and I am going back tomorrow morning to have a look and go in the day light

On the other thread you can see most people are adverse to it, but I wanted to ask current owners what they think.

I did notice that the steering was a little heavy in 1-2nd gear but I'm not sure if that's normal or if it's the fabled steering issues that mini's can develop

Any help is more than welcome!

 

[thewanted]

Has it got the proper lights?

Still waiting for the car to be delivered to the dealership, but I found the VIN today and http://bimmer.work confirmed that it has the LED headlights

It's also £5200 cheaper than a brand new one on Coast2Coast with the same spec which I'm very chuffed about, considering it's 5 months old with 3400 miles on the clock.

 

[Dano]

Hey all, quick question about the bimmer.work page, the listed options, is it just showing what was available or what was actually fitted to that particular vehicle?

 

[Darryl_1983]

I recently sold my clio 182 and bought a modified mk1 TT (1.8T approx 280-290bhp). Bought it because i loved the shape and needed something more comfortable.

Well i'm not gelling with it how i thought i would and fuel consumption is a bit higher than I expected, might just be becuase it's a new car. But with the mileage i'm doing it's costing me best part of £70 a week in fuel

Anyway I'm thinking of changing it for a R56, I'm expecting this will be more to my liking as i loved my little clio. What are they like comfort wise? as this was the major issue with the clio. I'm a little over 6ft tall and the driving position was terrible.

Also what kind of mile do people get from a full tank, are they 50l? if so that'd be well over 400 miles at the official figures suggested of 40mpg. But i've read people saying as little as 225 miles upto 400+ miles on a run. My commute to work is generally quite efficient as there are lots of 40 - 50mph road with average speed cameras. I'd ideally like to be doing 300+ miles to around £50 of fuel again, without having to worry about driving like a granny to save fuel. This would save me £80 a month approximately

Also they're 175bhp standard, what kind of power would a remap with simple supporting mods make, like a cat back exhaust, air filter and anything that isn't massively costly?

Also what Forums are best for the newer mini?

 

[toasteh]

go have a look on minitorque, what they dont know isnt worth knowing

 

[wingman]

The 18" 'run flat' tyres on my girlfriends Mini Cooper S (F56, 2014) make the ride somewhat harsh.

Would changing them to normal tyres make the best difference or should I shod the car with 16's too?

 

[Gaygle]

Would changing them to normal tyres make the best difference or should I shod the car with 16's too?

Ditch the runflats. They make such a difference on the Mini.

I think you should stay with the 18's for now and just try normal tyres.

 

[thewanted]

Which phone cradles are you guys with F5x Minis using? I have a Kenu Airframe+, but it doesn't work in the Cooper S because the air vents are at an angle and the one closest to the driver is obscured by the steering wheel.

 

[Gaygle]

Got another track day at Bedford tomorrow...or at least I hope I have! We haven't booked so are just going to try and rock up on the day and hope for the best.

Fitted the new wheels/AD08R tyres (which I think look great!), done a bit of standard prep and am hoping for some good track action!

 

[DAIR]

Those do look juicy. You on 17s?

 

[Psycho Sonny]

The 18" 'run flat' tyres on my girlfriends Mini Cooper S (F56, 2014) make the ride somewhat harsh.

Would changing them to normal tyres make the best difference or should I shod the car with 16's too?

When I went from 17's to 18's the ride went from okay to horrible. On non run flats too (eagle f1's). I would go smaller if you value ride over aesthetics.

 

[Gaygle]

Those do look juicy. You on 17s?

These are 16's as the tyres are cheaper and the alloys are lighter. I think the Mini is one of the only cars where smaller alloys can actually look better than bigger ones.

 

[DAIR]

Really small. And yes I agree small wheels do look better on these.

 

[Gaygle]

Well that was a bit of a rubbish day - not going with Javelin again if I can help it. I've never known a group of such unhelpful, disinterested and grumpy people! They refused to let us on because it was too full which was fine....but then they let two other people on. They then said we could go on if people broke down/left - so we stuck around. Even though a few people left in the morning session, they kept saying it was full...so we kept smiling and saying "no worries, we'll try later".

We went off for lunch to come back for the afternoon session and on our return we spoke to the MSV staff on site (as they own the place) who were frankly excellent. They told us that several had failed noise tests so were refused entry and we saw that the pit area had thinned out a lot, as well as seeing a few breakdowns. We got chatting to the MSV staff and explained that we'd been there all day to wait for a couple of spots to come up and they were surprised, but said they were sure it wouldn't be a problem as the afternoon sessions are especially quieter than the morning. So they radioed through to the Javelin staff and told them we'd been there all day, and the reply was "no, we not having any more". The end.

They were all quite shocked/confused, nervously laughed and one of them said he'd never known anyone to be refused entry to a trackday in the afternoon, especially when it had thinned out lots. Another one was about to get back on the radio and find out why we couldn't go on and that we'd been all day, but her colleague stopped her and said that as it's Javelin's day, they shouldn't intervene, as much as they would want to. They said they'd always try and help people out on an MSV trackday and suggested we come back to one of there's and they'd look after us next time. They were really friendly and you got the feeling they genuinely wanted to help us out.

MSV always seem to have this kind of customer service down, in all the track days I've been which have been organised by them. They can't do enough for you. I'm so disappointed with how unfriendly and disinterested ALL of the Javelin staff were. My mate and his dad who is a race driver says that of the hundreds of days he's been on, they have always managed to fit them in, particularly into the afternoon session.

So all in all, a bit of a disappointment, and i'll be giving Javelin a wide berth from now on. And if that wasn't enough, on the way back, the engine was making a really bad rattling noise from the top of the engine - suspected to be a timing chain tensioner failure. I've ordered a new one to be here for tomorrow as it can very easily be fatal to the engine if ignored! With this in mind, maybe it was a good thing that Javelin were so rubbish?