Hello all, I am fairly new here, lurker but not a poster. Anyway, recently I have decided it is time to let my beloved S4 go and get something more sporting and tossable for the Auto-x courses. And of course newer and more reliable. I have driven an 05 Cooper S a few years ago and loved it, but at the time was still in love more with my Audi, recently however I have seen many in town and am growing towards them yet again, perhpas buying a new one, so I have a few questions forthe current owners.

Being in Alaska we dont have a specific "Mini dealer" but have a BMW and I believe another dealer as the authroized repair center.
1) how reliable are the mini's, are there many problems with them, more so than a German car? more so than a Subaru? If out of warranty would the majority of you still own it or decided to get something else? Mainly, with my S4 out of warranty, German cars are not exactly cheap to continue to maintian above 150k miles. Is the mini in this boat being a BMW, or is it more into the realm of Japanese makes? Or perhaps is it brittish and very trouble prone?

2) how do the Mini's handle the cold white stuff? I know a couple run around with studs up here in town only, but I commute about 40 miles one way in it, and coming from AWD vehicles (S4 and Legacy) curious to know its handling characteristics with 6-10 inches of snow on the ground. Is it able to handle very well in the white stuff? woudl I need to get a "winter beater"? I guess, for those that came from an AWD of some sort be it subaru, audi, bmw or

3) New 07 owners, any regrets of buying a new 07 versus a used 05-06? current owners, for a prospective buyer, woudl you steer them towards a used 05-06 model, or tell them to go with a new 07 and turbo?

I know I shoudl search the forum, and I did for the snow portion with not many results so figured woudl ask a couple other questions.

TIA for any helpful information you have,
Ben

 

Welcome to NAM!

 

Hey welcome to NAM
THE SNOW QUESTION ......
I will say that the MIN can handle snow as long as the show is not super deep. We had a large snow storm this year that dumped over a foot and i will admit the MINI had to stay in the garage and we had to take the jeep.
so if the snow is under .....i would say 6 inches your fine over that may be a problem.

 

I can not respond to what the costs will be after warrenty as mine is an '06. In regards to the snow - we live in Winnipeg, Manitoba and we get very cold weather and a fair dump of snow every year. We drive it year-round but if there was a foot of snow we have a 4x4 that works better . It is GREAT on ice and I feel far safer in my MINI with winter tires then I do in the Dodge Ram Daytona 4-by when the roads are a skating rink! My husband participated in an ice-autocross here (done on a frozen lakebed) and beat every other car on our Michelin X-ice tires (including many subies) other then losing by 1 second to a DEDICATED icerace car on studded tires.

Would we get another MINI or keep it off warranty? That is our intention. I had an '87 BMW 325i and my hubbie has a highly modded '80 911SC Porsche so we know that when it breaks - the price is high. The beauty is that generally it doesn't break very often. We've had some small issues with our MINI but my last car was an '04 Acura (Japanese) and it had issues too. I look at the issues it has had as just part of the "wear in" process as it seems no matter what you purchase the first 50K miles are prone to show any weaknesses in components.

Anyways - although I love the MINI and will tell you that it is fantastic in Winnipeg where the roads are plowed regularly & it's more a problem with ice then snow it may not be right for Alaskan conditions.

 

Indeed, DEPTH of the snow is the issue. Winnipeg does get it's fair share but there has only been two days when I kept it in the garage. The car performed very well in the cold as well - I have no block heater and it started every day, even at -39C...bbrrr.. I have an auto and I noticed that when really cold the computer changes gears to slowly causing higher revs, so on the very cold days I switch to manual and usually start in 2nd until the motor warms up.

 

Welcome 2 Nam!