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Ive had 3 loved them. 2x R56 one cooper one cooper S and a new one I think the R62.

Had the oil seal issues on both R56 and thankfully was fixed under warranty.

Unfortunately the last one I bought, latest model 2.0l has an engine issue. It had 2 new engines/gearbox/clutches/flywheels in 12k. Crankshaft sheared twice. All warranties thank god. It was an absolute ordeal as it needed to be picked up by recovery every time. So embarrassing.

Dont buy a 64-65 car they were updated once we got the 3rd engine it seemed ok but all confidence was lost wont be buying one again. Didnt ever drive it hard it was a commuter.

The Turbo R53's are good (these are the proper JCW's and quite rare) the JCW tuning pack is a different thing outright. The rest are unreliable crap tbh.

But for £6k if you want a decent motor for hooning about it, You could get a 13 plate Fiesta ST at a push, I've had mine since March 2013 straight out of the factory, now on over 70K very hard abusive miles and it's never ever ever had any warranty work or anything go wrong or break, no lights on at all. Cannot fault it. All it's cost me is brakes, oil, plugs and tyres. Cambelt life is 12 years or 125k (Ford quote Long life cambelt bathed in oil) Over the past 1100miles I've averaged 42.3MPG and all time best of 44.7MPG over a full tank to panic mode when it read 0 and racked up 457 miles on the tank. Now she runs Pumaspeed 265pack and performs admirably. Far superior to any Mini S model.

Or seeing as we love BMW here.

https://www.gumtree.com/p/bmw/2006-bmw- ... 1271989890

£6k, solid engine 30+MPG what's not to like. Plus they are pretty rare and don't seem to want to drop below the £5k mark for a decent example.

On engines, the Turbo R56 models (S and JCW) had two 1.6 variants. N14 and then upgraded to N18. Standard Cooper was N12.
N18 available from 2010 onwards on Cooper S but 2012 onwards on JCW.
If you have a MINI logo between the Spark plugs and air box, that's an N14. The N18 has a cover over the engine with a MINI logo on it, that surrounds the oil cap.
These were apparently more reliable but likely over your planned budget. Certainly prefer them over the later F56 2.0.

A really nice R53 with the supercharged engine might be worth a look also. Probably done all it's depreciation. There wasn't a factory R53 JCW but there was a Cooper S with JCW pack. These are certainly worth a look, maybe a late 2006 model with low mileage, great history and spec.

We’ve just sold my wife’s 2002 cooper S (supercharged) with JCW pack. 70k miles. Really didn’t want to sell but was
no longer practical for her job. Absolutely mint for a 15 year old car:

my wife has the diesel cooper,
i hate it with a passion
its tighter inside than my 4 coupe, its bloody awful in most aspects apart from 60mpg and cheap road tax, but
it blew a turbo at 100 tho
its had rear calipers
front discs
front drop links
rear bushes
drinks oil
and has stop start technology that once just stopped!!!! and diddnt start.

once shes found a car she likes the mini is gone

Dans6490 - Yes that looks lovely. Exactly what I had in mind.
Although so far my R56 JCW has had no issues other than polybushing the front bushes.

Had an 08 CooperS for 3 years.

Great fun. Mine drank oil and had the death rattle sorted under warranty

Also needed the walnut blasting job doing just before I got rid.

Oh yes the dipstick was awful. That bad I bought a different flat one

My wife had an R56 Cooper S from new and had 5/6 years reasonably trouble free motoring. Had the timing chain and tensioner changed a couple of times over the years because of rattling. In the end chain slipped a tooth (dodgy tensioner??) and pistons and valves collided!! After a painful process with BMW customer services they agreed to fix it even though the car was 3 years out of warranty. Bill was approx 5k. Then within a week Turbo went. BMW replaced for £500 as gesture of good will. Then within a week fuel pump went ( second time in 3 years ). BMW replaced for free. Then I just got rid...

Dipsticks and Rfts were awful!! Besides the above car was awesome!!

Wow! Thanks for all the replies.

The words "fragile", "unreliable" and "death rattle" appear with a worrying frequency. In the short term I am going to think about whether a set of winter tyres (suggested by Steve84N) is the most sensible, and certainly the cheapest, option. It is true that we're unlikely to get 3 foot snowdrifts in West Sussex.

I shall also think about other options (e.g. Fiesta ST as suggested by Monkeydonkeyratmagic). don't hold your breath though - I'll probably still be thinking about this next autumn. Let's hope that Mrs R doesn't get involved - she's the one who a few years ago bought a new Ford Puma never having driven one or even seen one in the metal until she collected it! It was a great little car though.

Anyway, thanks again for all your thoughts and advice. If I ever make a decision I'll let you know.

If you're thinking of the fiesta wait till March. They are destroying it with the next model being a 3 pot but on the plus side the prices of the 13/17 plates should drop a little. Depending on how bad the next one is. Rumor has it it's shockingly bad and will be way way over priced. Current new shape 1.0T in a half decent spec rolls out at 21k. My fully speccd ST2 in 2013 was snatched at 16.700. Last batches ended up being bloated to 21.5k.

I would only buy new and even then I think you would need to be prepared to use the warranty. Every MINI I've sat in has had dash rattles included the Cooper S I had which would simply put me off full stop these days. I think the BMW build quality is slightly perceived with MINIs especially for what they cost. I still slightly hanker after a new S Works but would be afraid of issues cropping up.

Tim.

I really like the look of them, but having driven a few as loan cars, I was put off. The gearbox was "challenging" to say the least, with reverse the most challenging gear on all the ones I have driven.

Some years back though as I have not had them recently so don't know if that has been fixed.

RickRob wrote: ↑Fri Nov 03, 2017 8:26 pm Wow! Thanks for all the replies.

The words "fragile", "unreliable" and "death rattle" appear with a worrying frequency. In the short term I am going to think about whether a set of winter tyres (suggested by Steve84N) is the most sensible, and certainly the cheapest, option. It is true that we're unlikely to get 3 foot snowdrifts in West Sussex.

I shall also think about other options (e.g. Fiesta ST as suggested by Monkeydonkeyratmagic). don't hold your breath though - I'll probably still be thinking about this next autumn. Let's hope that Mrs R doesn't get involved - she's the one who a few years ago bought a new Ford Puma never having driven one or even seen one in the metal until she collected it! It was a great little car though.

Anyway, thanks again for all your thoughts and advice. If I ever make a decision I'll let you know.

The cooper doesn’t seem anywhere near as likely to suffer with those descriptions, it’s the cooper S that’s highly strung & troublesome
Rob

Thanks again to all of you who offered advice. So it appears that Mrs R has been harbouring dreams of a Mini Cooper S for some while and her mind is made up. So with. no argument from me, as if I would dare, we went to see one today. And, surprise surprise, we bought it. Massively over budget in %age terms, but then so is Mrs R!

I pick it up on Monday. The plan is that the Zed gets a rest during the week.

Anyway, there's a guy on here who consistently nags members for pics (can't recall his name ) so here are a couple:

Smart what’s the mileage?
Rob