Who here owns a Mini?

I'm going to be selling my MINI soon, how much do you think I should be asking for:

2007 '57 MINI Cooper S R56
Sparkling Silver
Black bonnet stripes + grey scale Union Jack mirror covers
Lea Lounge red leather interior
Chilli pack
Visibility pack (auto lights, auto wipers)
Sat Nav
GROM MST4 audio which provides Bluetooth audio, handsfree and Android / iOS USB music
58k miles
12 months MOT
4 new tyres, Michelin
FSH
2 keys

Good condition in and out.
 
Tweedy I've been stalking your thread over on MT. Good effort man!
Meatball I'm not too sure tbh I guess around the £4k mark but could be off on the basis I've only really been keeping an eye on N18s
 
Thread revival - tldr

What discs and pads would you recommend for a 2005 mini cooper s r53?

Rear Exhaust box needs replacing as well - ECP for that?

Just had it's MOT - passed but has a few things that need to be sorted.

Thanks for your help. :)
 
EBC Ultimax are not great at all.

Textar make good pads, as do ATE and Brembo. Maybe you need to give them a bit more bedding in time?

I use Brembo discs all round and pads at the rear and they have taken everything i could throw at them over 3 track days and have not given so much as a grumble, vibration or squeal at all. And i use the brakes hard!
 
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I don't do that much mileage - probably around 5-6k a year. Mostly weekends as I commute by train during the week. It's very much a car that when it gets driven tends to be driven moderately hard.

I will give Brembos a try.

Need to get a few other things replaced:

Brake sensor cabling
Oil sump plug is buggered and needs an extraction tool to get it out

There is a bit of rust on the front subframe which needs to get looked at as well.

Thanks for the advice. :)
 
Passed its MOT yesterday with a single advisory for a small oil leak, cleaned every inch inside and out as a treat, then refuses to start this morning. 4 new coil packs from ECP and away it goes again. :rolleyes:

All but one were the original coils and the error codes - on my device - said I had a misfire on cylinder 3, and reading them on an expensive reader said it had no error codes at all? The coil on cylinder 4 had just decided to die completely out of the blue.
 
The knocking at the front... once I had isolated the noise to the front right top mount/camber plate spherical bearing I badgered Meister for a couple of weeks... They were annoyingly disinterested and unhelpful. They wouldn't/couldn't tell me the size of the replacement bearing so I stripped one down to find out... Oddball size :/
So I bought a pair of bearings that were 'close enough' fixed it myself
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Now Knock free :D
 
Did a few bits to the Mini over the past few weeks:

Firstly put an upper strut brace on - Fletcher one piece aluminium one. Managed to get it second hand for £30 delivered - so not too bad. All it needed was a it of polish up with some Autosol and looks almost good as new!

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Secondly I decided to reblacken my plastic trim bits around the car with some Aerospace 303. They had gone grey and the trim at the front had spots of oil all over it from where a Sierra Cosworth's diff exploded on track in front of me last time I was out. Came up quite nicely, but would probably need doing again to make it 100%.

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Thirdly - I sorted the alignment. I used Kwik Fit and the same guy who did my M3 because he was great and super helpful. All the other BMW Specialists I took my M3 too did it wrong, and completely rushed it.

The guy @ Kwik Fit was equally as helpful when doing the Mini and spent at least two hours on it. We weighted it properly then took weights out/moved them around a few times to see how it effected the readouts. Really great guy. By the end of it the machine was starting to give some slightly odd results for the cambers and they were changing every time we put it back on, so we decided to just correct the toe at the front and then I'd go back another day once everything had settled a bit before looking at the camber. This was the last readout I got and like I said, it was giving some really weird readings by the end of it. We had been messing around with it quite a lot tbf including having to jack it up to get the seized track rod free.

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Got a day booked for the 19th April so I'll hopefully be able to get it all sorted before then - but tbh, it now feels absolutely planted around corners. I'm running about 2deg50mins at the rear and about 1deg20mins at the front
 
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Don't own one but borrowing my mums whilst I wait for my lease to arrive - 65 Plate Diesel Cooper Hatch, media xl and some other packs.
Really suprised how nice it is, hope my lease will be as good!
 
That brace was a bargain and seems to have come up nice!
I have used Meguiars tyre and trim stuff for a while now and really like that, it a gel that's really easy to apply although I hear good things about 303... GTechniq too, but pricey.
Good result on the tracking... I still haven't got round to fitting me RCAs and tbh now my Beetle is back on the road and I'm cycling to work again the mini just isn't seeing any use at all...
 
Don't own one but borrowing my mums whilst I wait for my lease to arrive - 65 Plate Diesel Cooper Hatch, media xl and some other packs.
Really suprised how nice it is, hope my lease will be as good!

I've driven three different Mini's an R50, R53 and an newer Clubman(?) and I haven't been disappointed with the handling on any of them. All are fantastic and so rewarding to drive. The only issue with the Clubman was it's awful engine and automatic gearbox. I think it was a 1.6l with like 90bhp coupled to an auto gearbox which just could never find a gear to make it go as it's meant to. It was just the engine was too underpowered.

I'm really keen to drive an F56 MCS or JCW. Hopefully they haven't got too fat these days, as is the usual case with cars through generations

That brace was a bargain and seems to have come up nice!

Yeh, was quite impressed. They're only £56 from a shop on eBay, so saving almost half on a brand new item is fine by me!

I have used Meguiars tyre and trim stuff for a while now and really like that, it a gel that's really easy to apply although I hear good things about 303... GTechniq too, but pricey.

Yeah the 303 works well, but it doesn't work as well on textured plastics as it does on smooth plastics/trim. It works brilliantly on the trim edges and under the bonnet on the M3, but took several applications to get an even finish on the textured plastics on the Mini. I used Megs tyre gel too and I didn't even think of using it - I'll give it a go in a few weeks when the 303 has worn off.

Good result on the tracking... I still haven't got round to fitting me RCAs and tbh now my Beetle is back on the road and I'm cycling to work again the mini just isn't seeing any use at all...

Me neither! I've been meaning to do a track day for 3 months now - but trying to get annual leave on the right day is becoming more and more challenging, not to mention a lot of days have gone up in price horribly. God knows how they can charge £130-£140 for an evening session at Brand hatch, or £160 for a day at Bedford Autodrome. I'm getting in on the good value £69 evening sessions at Snetterton. I think it's only for about 2.5 hours driving time, but it least it gets me back on track!
 
Ah cool! Even though my rears are at about -2deg 30mins unloaded, the tyres have worn well on track and it feels very stable in the corners.

I did an evening session an Snetterton on the 19th April - it was absolutely awesome and the car was even better. This car keeps stunning me with it's ability to keep up and go faster than cars either that are 20-30 times more expensive or fully stripped out and all the while whilst I have Spotify playing, the climate control set to 19c and my heated leather seats on (during the winter months). I can only imagine this cars potential if i was to strip the weight out of it. During the 2.5 hour session I only came in twice for 5-10 minutes a time, managed to do about 40 laps in total and got through a tank an a half of fuel. I think it's safe to say that the Mini did the most miles of all cars on that day.


Unfortunately, competitive/balls out driving like you do on track takes its toll on the car one way or another. The rear brakes were completely worn away by my antics, to the point where I had apparently sparks coming off them under braking! And the tyres have obviously got hot and need a good steady run to recondition them, as do the brakes as a whole. I've done 4 track days in it now, all of them have been in full on attack mode, so it could probably do with an oil and brake fluid change before my next track outing in three weeks time.

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Well, just installed the Racechip Ultimate. Took an hour to install, mainly due to the fact I forgot to plug one of the cables back in under the air intake :p other than that, so simple. Haven't had a chance to take it out for a proper drive, but so far driving normally feels the same. Once you put the foot down and hit 3500-4000 RPM, the extra power really kicks in. I'm also noticing a slight increase in noise from the intake/exhaust. Not had any issues with the car. No warning/engine lights or anything.

I really need a dyno, just for curiosity. May look into that.
 
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