Mini Cooper S

turbo

Has anybody seen any Cooper s on the roads or has anybody driven one????

Also What are the chances of 23 year old getting insurance in one???

gerrymetallica

Chances of you getting insured on one are very slim! Considering they have a SUPERCHARGED engine! Not justa turbo! A turbo thats constantly on!!! Sweet as!

Insurance would prob. be 7-8000e im from the north (23 years old) and insurance on one of those would be 2000 sterling! and thats under an insurance company with a young drivers policy!!!

Good luck!

turbo

I could always look into getting insured under one of my parents and have me a a 3rd party named driver???

gerrymetallica

If you wana stand on your own 2 feet get the insurance yourself!!! get a loan and pay it off!!! its the best way to the the no-claims bonus! By the time your 25 youll probably have 50% noclaims and your insurnace will be cheap as hell!!!

thanks what im doin! Ive my own 2 litre turbo diesel 2nd hand! 406! saved up bought the car outright! now all ive to worry about is laking a loan for the insurance every year and pay it back!

SIMPLE!

turbo

7000 - 8000 Euro is alot of Money
I know its good to get an early start by having your own insurance but There is no way i could afford that amount for a years's insurance.

Gmodified

There is no way I would pay 6000 for the insurance. It's nice to have own insurance but the price wouldn't justify it.

ozpass

Considering they have a SUPERCHARGED engine!

A turbo thats constantly on!!!

Not quite. It's a pump driven directly from the engine as opposed to a pump driven by exhaust gases.

Swings and roundabouts really. More lowdown grunt but it saps power like crazy when the engine revs. A sprintex 14:1 vane type supercharger on a 7.2 litre Ford Cleveland V8, for example, takes 560Bhp to run at 5,600 RPM.

Gmodified

As it is belt driven you can say, that is permanently on.

Delivers power boost from low rpm which doesn't happen in gas driven charger. Unfortunately being mechanically driven, it actually uses engine BHP to operate.

ozpass

I believe that's what I said. In my example above the engine is producing ~1150 BHP but only 590 BHP is being transferred to the transmission, as the engine is expending 560 BHP just to spin the supercharger.

red_ice

ive seen 1 r 2 new cooper S' on the road and when i went to england i drove my dads friends cooper S it was in the 70's when it was made and jesus did it have some pelt in it!

TBH a 23 yr old would not get the best deal on insurance and it would not be worth it at all.

Gmodified

Hey Mod,
I don't want to be another pedantic ar$hole but there you go:

gerrymetallica guy

quote:
Considering they have a SUPERCHARGED engine!

---

A turbo that's constantly on!!!

your response :

Not quite

So which one is it?
Not quite a supercharger?
or
Not quite permanently on?

ozpass

Both are pumps. Different drive system.

A supercharger isn't a "turbo that is permanently on".

A turbocharger isn't a "supercharger that isn't permanently on".

If you

don't want to be another pedantic ar$hole

Then don't start a semantic argument.

red_ice

i always thought that a supercharged engine was partly getting the control of fuel and ignition which will mean greater throttle response, smoother idling and more power. All with a bad ass cooling system

correct me if im wrong - but i dont think my principals are far off

Chimaera

In principle, both turbo and super chargers do the same thing - compress the air coming into the engine to give more power. They differ in how they achieve this though.

In a supercharger, the compressor is driven by a belt running off the engine. It'll use some engine power to operate, but it has the advantage of cripser throttle response since there's no lag between then engine speeding up and the compressor speeding up.

In a turbocharger, the compressor is driven by a turbine which is powered by the engine's exhaust gases. This has the big advantage of using power that'd otherwise be wasted, and so is more efficient. However, there is the issue of turbo lag - when the engine speeds up, the exhaust pressure will build up, but it will have to overcome the inertia of the turbo before that will speed up. The bigger the turbo, the greater the lag.

Anti-lag systems in competition cars overcome this by altering the ignition timing on overrun (when you let off the throttle to slow down) so that the spark plug doesn't fire until the exhaust valve is opening. This effectively burns fuel straight into the exhaust and increases the exhaust pressure to keep the turbo spinning quickly until the driver gets back on the gas. This is what causes the popping and banging from the exhaust of turbocharged rally cars. The disadvantage of anti-lag systems is that they drastically shorten the life of the exhaust manifold, and don't do catalytic convertors much good either.

Hope this clears up any confusion

red_ice

nice use of google there my son ;p

Chimaera

No googling was involved - I just happen to be an engineer with a keen interest in cars

flav0rflav

A smaller turbo is also useful in reducing lag, mind you we'd probably have to mention waste gate valves at that stage ...

Haven't seen any Cooper S on the roads, they're are easily distinguishable due to the intake above the front grill. Am I right in saying the regular cooper also has the white roof?

Chimaera

I've an idea the roof colour is one of the options you can pick.

Should have mentioned wastegates too, but what the hell :rolleyes:

Robbo

There's tons of factory options on the more expensive Minis including the Union Jack on the roof, a guy in work here (I'm in England, I hasten to add) decided that the factory one wasn't up to scratch and had one made up that suits the curves of the roof better.

commited

If u can afford the car, then u can afford the insurance
How about get a cheaper car + build up a few years NCB, then buy a nice 2nd hand one

turbo

Nah

I would prefer a new one

I ordinary mini cooper might have to do :-(

turbo

i havent been on here in a while, well since i posted the last message(2.5 years ago, and btw i ended up getting an new Cooper S and the insurance wasnt too bad. Got one in January 2004 and i still love the car, its the best thing i've ever bought.

Its inda funny looking back at this thread for me

MercMad

My cousin has a Cooper "S". Great thing to drice, just like a go-cart, it literally squirst along !

However I found the suspension to be uncomfortably hard. Now I'm used to hard suspension having had various cars that I lowered and modified but this was as hard as some competition cars I drove !

It was downright uncofortable and in fact I hurt my back on a road that I had always thought was smooth !

I couldn't live with it so if you were thinking of buying then take a decent test drive first, preferably of a well used one so you can see just how much the cheap plastic interior gets shaken to bits !

turbo

MercMad wrote:

My cousin has a Cooper "S". Great thing to drice, just like a go-cart, it literally squirst along !

However I found the suspension to be uncomfortably hard. Now I'm used to hard suspension having had various cars that I lowered and modified but this was as hard as some competition cars I drove !

It was downright uncofortable and in fact I hurt my back on a road that I had always thought was smooth !

I couldn't live with it so if you were thinking of buying then take a decent test drive first, preferably of a well used one so you can see just how much the cheap plastic interior gets shaken to bits !

I found the suspension okay, a big help was that i got rid of the run flat tyres and got a set of non run flats.that makes a big difference. The inside doesnt rattle too much, the earlier cas rattled alot but the newer ones ar eokay

t5pwr

I have driven one and they are quite a fun little car to drive, pretty quick. Lots of plastic inside though... But it's a nice little car.

5500

Whats the performance figures on them?

turbo

eireal wrote:

Whats the performance figures on them?

0-60 just over 7 sec
163 bhp (before 05, 170bhp after) though JCW cars have 210bhp


http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=50578709&postcount=307

turbo

t5pwr wrote:

I have driven one and they are quite a fun little car to drive, pretty quick. Lots of plastic inside though... But it's a nice little car.

the inside has quite a bit of plastic but i also had plenty of character, not many cars have as much character on the inside,

Big Balls

Great fun to drive, only had a 5 min blast in one though..

Some people live in a dream world when it comes to insurance in this country, in a lot of cases being male and in your early 20s does not guarantee you will not get a half decent quote.

I'm 24 in 6 weeks and I threw in my details on Britton there for a Cooper S. I have a full licence since 2001, 5 years NCB in 5 weeks and fully comp it came in at €1,400 for a Cooper S. Same company want €2,000 off me for a MKV GTI in the new year.

Nice car and all but the Cooper isn't a Spider lads, it seems quite possible to get a quote being male and young!!