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Mini Cooper S R56 thoughts please..

kas750

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31 Mar 2013
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5,087
My new girlfriend is looking to buy an R56 Mini Cooper S and I just thought I would ask about any inherent faults and ownership experiences with these cars.

I bought my now ex a new Mini Cooper in 2009 for her 40th birthday ( I wont make that mistake again :hand:) and it was a really easy car to own although my abiding memory is of very crashy suspension on the 17" wheels and the chilli pack sports suspension.
Any thoughts on the Cooper S please.
 
Im no expert , Bosses brother brought his mini in for some work , it actually broke down on us in the workshop !

Water pump pully failed on road test after a lot of work which also needed a new tensioner .. after looking at the design it was a joke , almost designed to fail .

General consensus from the other guys is they aint very reliable , ive worked on a couple and kinda agree with them .

But as i said im no expert on minis .. but i do know cars :)

BTW ..

Nothing on the Boxster front , your not going to want a cat D with a blown engine and the customers car i was thinking about .. the Service advisor went and bought it ! .. sorry .
 
I loved the styling on the Mini and thought I'd have one. Nearly for one for free through work.....but got rumbled. Anyway I talked myself into one, went for a test drive and hated it. Never been so shocked about a test drive as I was with that car. I couldn't tell what the front wheels were doing through the steering wheel.
 
General consenus is that the steering is a bit dead.
Just needs to be a swift shopping trolley TBH with some reliabilty thrown in!
I can toil for hours on my own dead end projects but the dailys are just a bind to deal with !
 
Demort said:
Nothing on the Boxster front , your not going to want a cat D with a blown engine and the customers car i was thinking about .. the Service advisor went and bought it ! .. sorry .

If you can keep your eyes peeled please Iain. :thumbs:
 
I have a R56 Cooper with a JCW body kit.Only 120 horses but I have the Turbo S for power. I love it. Strap it on and work the gearbox and its fine. Had it sorted at a local MINI man who knows his stuff.
 
Had an R53 Cooper S since new, brilliant car.

Brother had an R56 - very nice, a bit more grown up but a bit less fun than the R53.

Ride is always better on the 16" wheels, lose the run flats and the car rides perfectly nicely - R56 better than the R53.

Steering should be epic. My R53 steers better (more direct and more feedback) than my 996 (which has been fully refreshed at the front, alignment done recently too). So if it doesn't steer right, walk away from it - should be great if the car is a good 'un.
 
Thanks for the feedback chaps.
This is the car.Its 3 owners with fsh and it's priced at £4750.
I'll let you know how we go on.






















 
Looks nice that mate.
 
jerzybondov said:
Had an R53 Cooper S since new, brilliant car.

Brother had an R56 - very nice, a bit more grown up but a bit less fun than the R53.

Ride is always better on the 16" wheels, lose the run flats and the car rides perfectly nicely - R56 better than the R53.

Steering should be epic. My R53 steers better (more direct and more feedback) than my 996 (which has been fully refreshed at the front, alignment done recently too). So if it doesn't steer right, walk away from it - should be great if the car is a good 'un.

Also potentially picking up an R53 soon as a daily runner. Always liked the look of them and love the supercharger wine. Quite looking forward to it :thumb:

11_C6_C9_CE-_F185-43_C6-_A185-324_F2_F1_AECE5.jpg


The grey R56 looks great :thumb:
 
My son has an R56 which is about to hit the 100K mile mark, its well maintained and has recently had the timing chain replaced as it was starting to rattle.

The only real failure has been the clutch which started to slip at about 80K miles, once replaced the clutch was a lot lighter afterwards.

If the opportunity arose to choose one without the stop/start option that would be my preferred choice. There is also a lot of debate about the run-flat tyres.

They do tend to use oil at the rate of about 1 litre/1000 miles and ours averages about 35mpg even though they are a real pocket-rocket.

Great little cars and excellent value.
 
If you want to learn about MINIs, try minitorque.com.

The R56 is better in the later N18 engine flavour, responds well to modification, and the faults and fixes are all well known within the community. As long as you stay on top of the maintenance, they're fine.
There are several very good specialists around the UK such as Lohen and 1320, and parts are readily available (and they're a lot cheaper than Porsche parts!). They're a lot of fun to drive, and very predictable.

We have an R53 (S) with about 240bhp and an R56 (GP2) with 280bhp in the family, and both are staying. Love 'em.
 
The wife has a JCW and i think it's great fun to drive. She had a mini graphite before that with less power but still enjoyed the drive. So all in all the mini is a good fun car. Cooper S will go well. :thumbs:
 
I love my R56 cooper D it's fully loaded with factory works kit and on 17" with low profiles. I love it and use it all year round it's great fun. I was thinking of changing to 16" to give a less harsh ride.
Mine done 125k but I have had to do clutch flywheel water pump timing chain turbo brakes all round inc a couple of calliper. Took the engine out to do the clutch and did anything that looked like it needed doing like brake lines. I've spent a small fortune on parts but it's been enjoyable and I've now got a lovely sorted cheap to run car!! I only use the turbo for fun and I'd rather take the mini than the wife disco 4 :thumb:
 
There are three iterations now in being:

R50 - A turd rolled in very loose glitter
R56 - A step up and getting near to good build quality. If diesel you want the BMW not Peugeot engine
F56 - Built as good as a BMW. Quality fittings and fixtures but the extras list is longer than the Yellow Pages so price can affect what it's got.

I think from 2004 the R50 lost the 'Midlands' chocolate gearbox that would without warning lose all gears and it's not 'if' but 'when' it goes. Usually followed or preceeded by the semi-electric PAS pump that requires replacement unless you're very good at refurbing electric motors and have arms like a chimp to get it out. Normally you'll then suffer the drivers door lock failure and window motor that somehow only becomes faulty when the window is down. Then the brake calipers will seize up and a nip to the shop for a pint of milk gives you 8mpg and the cost of new pads but a nice warm feeling from the alloy so you can save on the central heating. How do I know all this? My daughter's first Mini had the full house :what: So far the R56 is behaving.

All models/types suffer from collapse of the drivers right thigh bolster to some degree whether or not owned by a flyweight or Hattie Jacques :nooo:

Chilli pack essential.

Would I buy the Mrs one - yes an R56. Would I buy one - yes an F56 CooperS. In fact I did and I'm enjoying it that much it lookls like it will be making the trip to Monaco Classic in May :thumb:
 

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