Hey guys,

I'm looking at two certified pre owned Cooper S mini's. One is a 2007 the other is a 2009. Both low mileage...6 speed manuals.

My questions:
Performance- What is the actual 0-60 on these cars? I have found a few ambiguous test results reporting 6.2, 6.5 seconds and then the mini website says 7.0 seconds which sounds incorrect.

Alta AP: I hear its discontinued? Can I still get one? If so what kind of 0-60 and 1/4 mile improvement can I expect? I've read again alot of different responses on this. (I would be running just a tune and intake)

Has anyone added Navigation and if so cost??

Thanks alot for answering these questions. I'm purchasing this week and am really low on time with a busy work schedule/travel. (as I post this at 2:20am i'm out of time to keep searching)

 

Good choice going with a CPO, but I would look more at the '09 as there are slightly more issues with the first year of any generation (ie 2007). I would check to see if the timing chain was done or just a tensioner but with both cars I would have assumed it was done by now as lots of cars earlier into the 2nd gen had the "death rattle" at some time and the revised parts were installed to fix the issue.

0-60 is not what these cars are about but mid 6sec is accurate. A CAI or HotAI as most aftermarket stuff really doesn't add much int he way of power or speed but noise and looks. If looking for an intake I vote for the DoS intake for its noise, looks, and cold air functionality, not just a filter inside of the hot engine bay.

Adding nav would be pointless. The cost to do it if possible would be thousands plus hours of parts swapping and coding. For less money and same or less effort you could do an aftermarket doubledin, but that isn't super easy or all that common. Plus most people who have the nav have a few things the complain about (I don't have it and wont' spend the money for it as it is usually hard to use or outdated).

Hope that wasn't too negative, but I am telling it like it is. If you add your info in the profile show it shows on the top right side of your post others might be near you and be willing to go look at these cars with you.

I am surprised the '07 is a CPO as the car needs to be 5 or less years old and 60k mi or less to be certified. You have a link to these cars so we can weigh in here?

 

I agree with Yetti.

IMHO Buy a MINI to carve the corners, but I'm sure you can find a used AP for sale.

Nav? Get a good smartphone/portable nav holder and run power and a 3.5mm cord up to it. OR buy one with a NAV installed. Way too much work and $$ to swap it out.

If I had a choice of used MINIs at a MINI dealer and they were both low miles, I'd buy the one with the shortest timing chain measurement. This is an easy thing for the dealer to do. Then make sure they have the correct tensioner installed for the length measured.

 

I bought an '09 MCS 6-spd. last April that was a CPO. It had about 38K miles on it. It had a lot of nice features.





Throughout the year, I made a few changes to it.





I have more changes coming up in a couple months.

I would recommend the '09 since it is a newer car. Have the dealer check the service history to see if all the warranty work has been done.

 

Thanks for the quick feedback. The dealership ended up only having an 08' model which was part of the CPO. It was also priced a little too high in my opinion @ $24,995.

My impressions are as follows; I had driven an 03' Cooper S years ago and loved the supercharged feeling. Reading that the 07' and newer models are now turbo I was interested to feel the difference. I suddenly realized when the salesman pulled the car around that the Mini really hasn't had any major updates in in the 9-10 years since I had last driven one. The interior really isn't that great compared to other turbo hatch offering such as the Mazdaspeed3 and yep (wince) even the Veloster Turbo has it beat inside.

Road noise... whoa... whats going on here. Too much. Turbo lag..... too much. I hadn't read much about this anywhere online. The rear seats not folding flat kinda sucks... I have two dogs that would ride around back there if it was completely flat. Shifter.... ummm kinda balky with long throws. Plastic interior....

I mean i get the retro appeal of these cars.... but its time for an update. I can't justify buying this car. I'm sorry guys i'm not trying to bash what you guys love.... I really do get the car.... but its something I would rather pick up for $10k thats 7-8yrs old for bombing around town. (Which I may look at doing)

Thanks again for the feedback. I'm curious to hear back from anyone else who has driven the vehicle in my target search to hear why you might have picked your mini over a Mazdaspeed3, veloster turbo etc.

 

Nice ride!!!Black is my favorite color along with dark green!

 

Get a Carfax too!