Mini Cooper Q's

[Part-time]

I have a guy that want's to trade me an '04 mini cooper for my 21' motor home (worth about $5,000).
I don't know anything about those smurf sized automobiles.
What are your thoughts about mini's?

 

[oldjeep]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

Don't do it unless you are sure that there is nothing wrong with it at all. My son has an 03 and while they are cute and fun to drive, the interior is built with all the quality of a yugo. Parts are expensive and they are difficult to work on unless you are the size of a 6 year old.

Check the motor mounts - they shred and are not much fun to replace. The exhaust is probabally rotted out allready too $$$$. I could go on for pages on all the stuff that has been fixed on that car since he got it. Now that he has spent about $2K and a lot our skin on it - it is a pretty decent car.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

Manual transmissions are weak. The automatic is more reliable....well a little bit more!

 

[oldjeep]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

Manual transmissions are weak. The automatic is way more reliable.

As long as you pay the $$$ to keep the cvt auto adjusted, otherwise that little snowmobile clutch burns out and costs 6-9K to repair. My son has an auto in his. There is a class action suit surrounding those automatics in the 1st gen minis.

 

[Solittle]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

My daughter bought one and hated it the day she took it off of the showroom floor.

 

[foodfisher]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

If you do and don't like it, you could always flip it to Bubba

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

As long as you pay the $$$ to keep the cvt auto adjusted, otherwise that little snowmobile clutch burns out and costs 6-9K to repair. My son has an auto in his. There is a class action suit surrounding those automatics in the 1st gen minis.

I had changed my post to a little more reliable! I had forgotten about the class action law suit.

 

[Part-time]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

If you do and don't like it, you could always flip it to Bubba

Bwaaahahahaha!!!! I'm not any better... I'm no 6'7" in fact, I'm only 5'9" but 296 lbs...
If I take it it's just to flip it. I'm thinking it might be easier to sell than an old motorhome.
It's a 5spd standard, new tranny, new exhaust, brakes and all the front end.
It's from southern Ontario so it has passed emissions testing and a safety certification.
It is a high miler but the compression is all good. It's a one owner car, the guy has had it since new, rebuilt it all for his daughter but she can't get a hang of the 5 spd.

 

[Part-time]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

What it basically boils down to is... what's easier to sell, a 1977 dodge 21' motor home with 66,500 miles on a 440 V-8 that gets an awesome 6.5mpg or an '04 Mini with 186,500 miles but in great shape?

 

[foodfisher]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

Got a coin? Where's the cost of fuel going?

 

[generator12]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

I can tell you all this:

I was rear-ended on I-94 north of Chicago last November by a young woman driving a mini. (She had knocked her water bottle onto the floor and was trying to retrieve it, so didn't notice that traffic had stopped in front of her.) Totaled both my Ranger pick-up and her mini.

The salient point is that my tailgate wound up right against her windshield; my rear wheels and axle were off the ground, and that thing supported all of it. When the tow truck tried to pull my truck onto the flat bed, he had to draw the two of them up to the back of his rig and pull my truck off her hood. That mini simply rolled forward when he winched and carried my truck with it.

And the woman wasn't hurt! It was a significant crash to total my truck - bent frame, etc., and of course the mini was trashed. I gained a certain respect for the mini's with that event.

 

[Part-time]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

The story with the camper is that I never wanted it in the first place... I was looking at a 30' class A.
The guy with the class A wanted to downsize and wanted this one.
So I traded my deck boat that otherwise I would have kept, for the 21' but when it came time to do the trade for the other RV we found out that it had 2 liens on it!
The guy with the 30' is the pour guy that really gets burned on this deal though! The purchase price plus about another $2,000 in tires, brakes and front end parts to make it road worthy and he can't do anything with it.

And the Mini is coming home on Tuesday...

 

[JB]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

Daughter #2 had one. Handled and rode like a GoKart. When the novelty wore off (rather quickly) she traded it for an Outback. Still has the Outback with many kilomiles on her.

 

[dwco5051]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

Mini Coopers cause strange things to happen to their owners. Our District Attorney went for a ride in his about 7 years ago and hasn?t been seen since. The Mini was found in a parking lot about 45 miles east of here but there has been nothing ever heard from him again.

Google "Ray Gricar"

 

[Tim Frank]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

What it basically boils down to is... what's easier to sell, a 1977 dodge 21' motor home with 66,500 miles on a 440 V-8 that gets an awesome 6.5mpg or an '04 Mini with 186,500 miles but in great shape?

186,500 miles or kM??

 

[bigdee]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

I never had any experience with the mini but have had experience with number of British cars over the years, MGB,MG midget,Hillman, Austin Healy , Triumph. They all were unreliable and expensive to operate.

 

[RogersJetboat454]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

I never had any experience with the mini but have had experience with number of British cars over the years, MGB,MG midget,Hillman, Austin Healy , Triumph. They all were unreliable and expensive to operate.

New Mini isn't British. It's made by the "ultimate driving machine" folks, AKA BMW.

 

[kenmyfam]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

This thread got my attention until I saw it was the BMW Mini Cooper being discussed. I had a 1965 Mini Cooper S back in England and loved the little thing.
Good Luck Tuesday. Let us all know how you make out.

 

[bruceb58]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

New Mini isn't British. It's made by the "ultimate driving machine" folks, AKA BMW.

But they are still made in England! Designed in Germany.

 

[bigdee]

Re: Mini Cooper Q's

New Mini isn't British. It's made by the "ultimate driving machine" folks, AKA BMW.

I guess globalization is a good thing....reliability went up after 2005