Hello, petrol, car and Mini fans!
I have been driving Mini Cooper for more than 9 months now so I guess I can write a decent review of the car, the things I like and of course things I hate.
A little bit of introduction of the Mini story - legendary classic Mini Cooper that was in making from 1959-1999 when BMW bought the brand from Rover and surprised the world with all-new Mini Cooper that was going to correct all mistakes of British engineering and reliability.
So how did they go on with it?
Not to bad, but the car is not of the same quality of the BMW or Mercedes from that time, and it is apparent that he still has a lot Britishness in bits all around the car.
I bought my Cooper with 120 000 thousand miles on the clock but everything was working and looked in shape. It is a 2004 Cooper with 1.6-liter petrol engine containing 116 horsepower. Chili red colour with the double sunroof, 17inch wheels, white roof, bonnet stripes, half leather interior. Nice pack.
Only 1200 euros! At least I thought.
Immediately serviced it myself, Changed the engine oil for Castrol Edge, changed the air filter, oil filter, all new window wipers and cabin air filter.
70 euros
The first thing that went wrong is the battery - well that was a mistake of mine - I should take more attention to details like that when buying the car.
Battery - 60 euros
Happily continued until the engine started to move too much in the engine compartment on still starts and downshifts so here all of the engine mountings had to be changed. I have started with changing only one (the easiest) but as we all know if one is gone probably the rest are on their way as well so it is best to change them all in one go. So I have.
Engine mounts (3x) - 160 euros
And i have decided to replace it myself so i had to buy some tools, special keys and so on.
Hydraulic jack - 30 euros
Car stands - 15 euros
Tools - 30 euros
Oil filter wrench - 12 euros
After a few thousand miles when I only got used to my fully functioning Mini another issue arsed. He was not taking the throttle well...he was chocking and accelerated with jerks so it was unsafe to pull out on the motorway or any faster road.
On examination (connected it to a computer in a local garage for 20e) we discovered that he was missfireing on 1st cylinder, so it could be the plug coils, plug leads or the plugs. As the plug coil is the most expensive of all three i found it the best to start with the spark plugs which did not make any difference and when i changed the plug leads to NGK everything was working well again and he was sprinting like before. Easy job.
Computer fault scan - 20 euros
Spark plugs Denso iridium - 20 euros
Spark plug leads NGK - 25 euros
Yeah, and my window was not sealing properly but that was easily fixed with a bit of fiddling with no cost accept for a few hours fixing the window into the right position. You can check out how to fix this in my post: https://steemit.com/diy/@mkaralic/mni-cooper-2001-2006-diy-window-not-sealing-well-fix
After a few months I've felt that the clutch started to slip and soon after that it failed on NCT (corded brake lines) so i brought it to the shop to address all of the above.
They fixed it; changed the clutch, crankshaft position sensor seal (all minis leak here after a while and this was perfect opportunity to change when complete front end is dismantled), aligned the headlights and changed 1.5 meters of brake lines to copper ones.
Clutch - 500
Brake lines - 80
Headlights alignment - 20
I have not realized until now when I just added all these expenses up! OMG what an amount! I think this car is just a bottomless pit to throw money at. Comparing it with the BMW 3 series from 2000 which had no investments at all in more than 10 thousand miles i had it.
1042 euros in total!!!! OMG WTF - could bought another one for that cash.
In a bit more than 6 months and 5 thousand miles more on the clock. And the average gas mileage is around 30-35mpg. So the car is not good on petrol, its not very well made (BMW 3 series build quality is bit better), so is something good with this car (beside his looks) going on or what?
The way he drives. This is the first and only reason why would you buy a Mini Cooper. You forget all imperfections on the first roundabout or sharp corner or anywhere on the open road where he just brings a smile on your face and you know the reason why are you keeping this car. Endless mechanical grip, no body roll, instant feedback, great steering precision. Just wow. Feels so easy and light and builds you up with great confidence. Just amazing car to drive, if you can keep up with the annoying things he does.
The verdict - It is worth it? Big and strong YES
Specially because i believe that the car was not taken care of very well and that was the reason of most this faults and repairs. The fact that it is a 14 year old car and still running this well sounds that maybe I'm too hard on him. Now everything works in perfect order engine wise, all the mechanics, all the buttons, windows and all other features and i hope it will stay like that, to be honest I like this car very much and i think this one will be a keeper.
Check out some timelapses of the drives with Mini that I made.
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More to come...
All pictures, videos and text published in this post are my original work.
Braaaaap ON!