I was starting to get early signs of throwout bearing issues on my 2007 Cooper S cabrio, along with an older top that saturated in the rain and made the car smell like an old pair of sneakers... I was going to give a GTI a shot, but the Mini dealer which i visited first was apparently desperate (last day of the month) to offload a 2012 cooper S on me - get this - because it was a manual and nobody buys manuals anymore...

After several rounds of back and forth they raised my trade-in $3000 and my 2012 had just been dropped 4K$, so I let them convince me not to even go to VW ;-)

The +: It's a 2012 (they had a super cheap 09 but I read about that engine and wanted the 2011+ hopefully to avoid the carbon buildup issues). Nice bluetooth, nice usb music, stuff I did not have before... a real roof (gawd I hated that cabrio top) with rear visibility, 2 sunroofs, more power..well more kick in the *** anyway. And the trunk went from "ridiculous" to just "laughable", an improvement !

The (-): The turbo has a bit of lag compared to the supercharger - but when it comes on it pulls harder, the car is british racing green (cheap, but green was definitely not on my list of favorite colors, can't win all battles), 16" runflat vs my old 17" real tires (should be better for potholes though), it's missing gauges I had in the cabrio(water temp, oil temp), oh well...

I caved and bought the dealer's maintenance package (which I usually skip) for about $2000 for 2.5 years. Why? because now I know a clutch at the dealer is $3400 and I don't know who drove this before me (27K miles), I also recently did brakes and shocks on my old R52, so any of those things happening would pay for the maintenance package, along with oil changes and wipers and belts it comes with... Who knew the clutch was a maintenance item ??? I'm gonna dump the clutch like I just don't care now ;-) (kidding, I can't abuse a car)

I already ordered strut tower collars, for the roads my car will be traveling which make Mogadishu look like an asphalt paradise... If you have any particular recommendations for a new owner, things to do on the car (2012 cooper S stick), let me know... I'm gonna start browsing the R56 forums now, see what I bought !

 

Congrats on the Upgrade. Let me know if I can help you.