Who here owns a Mini?

[Darryl_1983]

I joined one of the Mini Facebook groups recently, as i'm tempted to switch over to one. Seems like it almost a daily thing for someone to roll there Mini this time of year. I'm guessing this is more due to the type of driver than the car itself being easy to roll.

 

[toasteh]

From experience, if you do roll one they're rather solidly built cars so at least you'll be safe

As an aside, if your timing chain does fall apart and bork the engine it'll cost around a grand to fix, yay

 

[Ryan-3]

Not sure how you'd roll one without leaving the road, but I'd expect to be fine going off crash videos with them at the Nurburgring.

 

[Darryl_1983]

Like i said i think it's most likely the type of driver, i'm not going to say more than that.

Just really surprised me how often they've been popping up over the last couple of weeks.

 

[MarcM]

I own a mini r53 cooper s Modified airbox, 17% Kavs, Newman PH 3-4 Cam, Janspeed manifold and decat pipe, Milltek Catback, Hardrace Adjustable Rear Arms, BC BR Coilovers. On a 20thou skimmed head and port and polished gasket matched. Mini is my favourite toy. Great cars.

 

[NoNameNoNumber]

Good stuff Gaygle, love hearing your track antics lol.
Surprised you kept with the M3, you think he could actually drive it or is the Mini that good?

In other news... I have fitted a Japspeed manifold along with my stainless cat back and a 'Tomcat'. I want to say it's quicker... sure it is but there's likely a lot of placebo in there
Not really any noisier I don't think but the rest of the exhaust doesn't seem to fit too well... Could do with taking it to an exhaust shop and have them tweak/modify the hangers I reckon.

Yesterday morning starting work on the manifold in -0.5ºC with a cuppa and a heap of spanners on the gravel drive... What an arse of a job though, made much harder by the fact I have used heat wrap on it so it wouldn't slide past all of the obstructions very well, struggled like hell to get the stock heat shields back in place too but gave up in the end...

Found my coolant expansion tank is weeping at the seam, ordered one today from Cotswold Mini, £61.60 delivered and should be here tomorrow. It never ends...

 

[Sparky]

The part is probably about £120, and labour a couple of hours?

£200 all in

 

[Gaygle]

Good stuff Gaygle, love hearing your track antics lol.
Surprised you kept with the M3, you think he could actually drive it or is the Mini that good?

I think he was going as fast as he could and he was taking all the right lines and his entry speeds were about right. Don't get me wrong, a better driver would have been able to go faster, but I think that's the case with most people! Owning an M3, I know what the problem is - it's the weight which realllly shows it's disadvantages on the track, especially on standard suspension with standard road tyres.

The Mini is lightweight, the steering is instantaneous and it had track biased tyres, which make a world of difference. Had the M3 been put on a diet, had some decent tyres and coilovers (as other E46 M3's did at the track day) he would have been gone in the corners and on the straights (as other E46 M3's did!). But in relatively standard trim, my Mini is quicker than an E46 M3 around the track.

In other news... I have fitted a Japspeed manifold along with my stainless cat back and a 'Tomcat'. I want to say it's quicker... sure it is but there's likely a lot of placebo in there
Not really any noisier I don't think but the rest of the exhaust doesn't seem to fit too well... Could do with taking it to an exhaust shop and have them tweak/modify the hangers I reckon.

Nice! I had been looking at a new manifold but from my research I found exactly what I think you have - it doesn't really give much more power for what is a relatively pricey mod. Not to mention the standard manifold is tubular and actually quite a good one.

Yesterday morning starting work on the manifold in -0.5ºC with a cuppa and a heap of spanners on the gravel drive... What an arse of a job though, made much harder by the fact I have used heat wrap on it so it wouldn't slide past all of the obstructions very well, struggled like hell to get the stock heat shields back in place too but gave up in the end...

Which is why I have refused to do *anything* on any car until this stupid weather warms up!

Found my coolant expansion tank is weeping at the seam, ordered one today from Cotswold Mini, £61.60 delivered and should be here tomorrow. It never ends...

Yeah, i'm keeping an eye on mine. It's a bit yellowy so I suspect it is the factory one and likely to fail at some point! £61 is steep for a small plastic bottle though!!

£200 all in

Good stuff. It's not the most difficult job in the world - just a bit fiddly

 

[Dano]

Well... I am now a member of this club, got myself a 2004 (Jan build so still midlands box) Gen1 Cooper, had 77500 miles on the clock when I picked it up, it appears to be in outstanding condition for it's age and was certainly far better than any of the others I looked at, has had a fair few previous owners but it looks like everybody has looked after it.

Data for it from bimmer.work is this:

Type RC32
Model Cooper - EUR
Development Code R50 (2)
Chassis COUPE
Steering RL
Doors 3
Engine W10
Displacement 1.60
Power 85
Drivetrain FRONT
Transmission MECH
Color Chili Red - 851
Upholstery Stoff Leder Kaleido/panther Schwarz - S5PN
Production Plant OXFORD
Production Date 2004-01-15
Exterieur
Interieur
360°

Standard Equipment
169 Eu3 Exhaust Emissions Norm Abgasnorm Eu3
546 Revolution Counter Drehzahlmesser
853 Language Version English Sprachversion Englisch
Options
1CA Selection Cop Relevant Vehicles Selektion Cop Relevanter Fahrzeuge
214 Automatic Stability Control+traction Aut.stabil.-control+traktion(asc+t)
228 Sports Suspension Settings Plus Sportliche Fahrwerksabstimmung Plus
255 Sports Leather Steering Wheel Sport-lederlenkrad
325 Rear Spoiler Heckspoiler
327 White Bonnet Stripes Motorhaubenstreifen Weiss
346 Chrome-line Exterior Chrome Line Exterieur
369 Lt/aly Wheels/s-spoke Lm Raeder/s-speiche
382 Roof And Mirror Caps In White Dach U. Spiegelkappen In Weiss
420 Sun Protection Glazing Sonnenschutzverglasung
423 Floor Mats, Velour Fussmatten In Velours
427 Interior Surface, Silver Interieur-oberflaeche Silber
441 Smokers Package Raucherpaket
450 Height Adjustment F Front Passenger Seat Beifahrersitz Hoehenverstellung
481 Sport Seats F Driver/front Passenger Sportsitze Fuer Fahrer/beifahrer
493 Storage Compartment Package Ablagenpaket
520 Foglights Nebelscheinwerfer
530 Air Conditioning Klimaanlage
550 On-board Computer Bordcomputer
564 Interior Light Package Innenlichtpaket
650 Cd Player Cd-laufwerk
657 Radio Boost Radio Boost
736 Second Radio Remote Control Key 2. Funkfernbedienungsschluessel
8SP Cop Control Cop Steuerung
812 England Version England/irland Ausfuehrung
863 Europe/dealer Directory Service Kontakt-flyer Europa
872 Chili Chili
880 English / On-board Documentation Englisch / Bordliteratur

Only thing I am not keen on is the checkered wing mirror covers so will at some point pick up a set of plain white ones, or possibly black and maybe get the roof wrapped in black and replace the bonnet stripes with black ones too. Previous owner put £600 of dunlops on it in November too so no worrying about tyres for a while and I can concentrate my concerns on gearbox, clutch (they feel alright to me, a little bit clunkier that my old Polo 1.3 was maybe but I think that is expected? I'm also prepared if they need replacing, plus any bushes etc etc...) and whatever else is highlighted in april when the MOT is due

Big change from my 22 year old Polo 1.3CL lol and I am loving it so far

 

[NoNameNoNumber]

I think he was going as fast as he could and he was taking all the right lines and his entry speeds were about right. Don't get me wrong, a better driver would have been able to go faster, but I think that's the case with most people! Owning an M3, I know what the problem is - it's the weight which realllly shows it's disadvantages on the track, especially on standard suspension with standard road tyres.

The Mini is lightweight, the steering is instantaneous and it had track biased tyres, which make a world of difference. Had the M3 been put on a diet, had some decent tyres and coilovers (as other E46 M3's did at the track day) he would have been gone in the corners and on the straights (as other E46 M3's did!). But in relatively standard trim, my Mini is quicker than an E46 M3 around the track.



Nice! I had been looking at a new manifold but from my research I found exactly what I think you have - it doesn't really give much more power for what is a relatively pricey mod. Not to mention the standard manifold is tubular and actually quite a good one.



Which is why I have refused to do *anything* on any car until this stupid weather warms up!



Yeah, i'm keeping an eye on mine. It's a bit yellowy so I suspect it is the factory one and likely to fail at some point! £61 is steep for a small plastic bottle though!!



Good stuff. It's not the most difficult job in the world - just a bit fiddly

IDK, the more I drive the mini now the more I think it has gained some more balls... I'd like a Miltek cat back though now, mine isn't really the right tone for me and yet it doesn't drone when cruising at all... Would be much nicer if it actually fitted and sat on the hangers properly to reduce NVH... I need to get it on a ramp and have a good nosey although I can't weld stainless so I wont be able to fix it.

The replacement from BMW comes with a new cap so I didn't think that was too bad tbh. It's a horrible colour anyway even when new lol

 

[NoNameNoNumber]

New expansion tank fitted... <10 minutes work with a 10mm spanner and slip joint pliers for the pipe clamps.

Bought some Meister R coilovers too

 

[Sparky]

Debating whether or not to change the wheels , quite fancy some Rota Grid Drifts

 

[NoNameNoNumber]

Very nice wheels. 16 or 17?

 

[Gaygle]

Bought some Meister R coilovers too

Me too



They're second hand - £395 isn't too bad and they are in pretty good condition. A bit of rust on the front springs but nothing too bad at all. The rest of the body looks perfect and the threads are rust free.

Have you fitted yours yet? I really want to get mine done, but seeing that the temperature is barely rising above freezing over the next couple of days - i'm not in any hurry! And it's going to be a ball ache getting the ride height sorted, which will probably require the wheels to come on/off several times to get it sorted so would ideally like it to be warm! I don't want them chavvy and low, I just want a small drop over standard, so will probably have to mess around with them a bit.

 

[[TW]Fox]

What on earth is going on with the Mini warranty?

Anything Cooper S - even a 2011 Cooper SD for example - is priced at bonkers money, £950 a year. The same as an F10 550i.

Even a 340i M Sport is less.

It seems they are treating 'S' as if it's 'M Power' in terms of the pricing.

 

[rare]

950 a year bwahaha. Its only a 6 year old Mini...what could go wrong!

 

[thewanted]

What on earth is going on with the Mini warranty?

Anything Cooper S - even a 2011 Cooper SD for example - is priced at bonkers money, £950 a year. The same as an F10 550i.

Even a 340i M Sport is less.

It seems they are treating 'S' as if it's 'M Power' in terms of the pricing.

I mentioned that in this thread a few weeks ago. It's just retarded

 

[[TW]Fox]

It's absolutely pathetic when you have somebody in another thread on here who has been quoted less per year on a Porsche warranty. It's a Mini for goodness sake - 950 quid a year boils my **** for the 5 Series warranty let alone pricing a MINI at the same level.

 

[Gaygle]

To be honest, even if it was half of that I wouldn't consider it to be worth it. £500 + £100 excess of unscheduled maintenance repairs on a 6 year old Mini diesel is quite unlikely.

I looked back and at one time I think I paid £380 for a year of warranty on the 335i. Paying nearly a grand for a Mini warranty is crazy.

 

[[TW]Fox]

It's well worth it at half that for the peace of mind and zero hassle ownership.