Mini Cooper S 2007 Advise Needed Please

Obsolete01

Hi folks,

As the title suggest I am looking at a 2007 MINI Cooper S, 1.6 Turbo engine.

I have checked the car out and it is a genuine Iriah car with a full history and comes with 15 months warranty. However i suppose what i am looking for is, what are the need to know options before i buy this.


Some people say they are great and others say they are trouble - So i am looking for feedback from people who actually have them and have driven them please. Ant feedback will be greatly appreciated, thank you.

Marcusm

HAd a late 2007 Clubman (launch model), now have a 2009 convertible both Cooper S. THere are plenty of discussion forums (mini2.com etc) where you can review driver experiences. Here you will likely hear that "it is a girl's car" and that "them Peugeot engines give awful trouble" and similar. MY experience is that the car is a lot of fun (manual better than automatic by a mile) and that run flat tyres are easily replaced with normal tyres so long as you are willing to take a risk on using a breakdown service.

The higher the spec the better as lower specs ones are not such nice places. UK cars generally came with the TLC pack as standard meaning that 5 years servicing was included. These cars are subject to condition based servicing meaning that they are scheduled to have long intervals between services. Ask for the history and see what was done. THe only significant thing I have ahd to do across the two cars was a warranty replacement on the thermostat int he coolant system which developed a leak.

I'm 6'5" and weigh over 28 stone - last Thursday I drove from London to Holyhead without stopping and was not even particularly stiff getting out of the car (on the ferry).

Donnelly117

I have an 07 R56 Cooper S for about a year now. TBi, another poster here has/had and 09 I think so he may be along to give you his two cents!

As for mine, reliability wise its been okay... When I first got it it it had turbo issues which I think the wastegate had to be replaced/fixed along with a lot of the turbo pipework. This came in around 500 euro I iirc

More recently its needed a new timing chain tensioner. Cost around 180 ish euro.
Currently the oil filter housing gaskets need to be replaced, I have a main dealer quote for 350 euro.

It also burns oil...which I think is a feature of these engines. This can be sorted by de-coking it I think, the rate of oil burning seems to get worse as the crap builds up in the cylinders.

I would recommend looking for one which has had the TC tesioner replaced as early as possible as these are known to go on ones which havent been looked after.

Just so its not all negative... the car is a hoot to drive! On good tires onn good roads it feels like it will never run out of grip and at the top of the rev range it roars
Does about 30mpg if you're bothered about that

Obsolete01

Well that to me sounds like they are good cars folks. Every car has its problems and anything with a torbo will burn oil (no matter what anyone says).

Appreciate the feedback, thank you!!