This is not meant to bash MINI or BMW in any way. It's just a reflection of what happened when I tried out my jack today. With every car that I've bought, I ALWAYS did a "tire change" so I could find out how the jack works. My first car had the old fashioned diamond shaped jack. I loved those. They were so easy to use. You could get the car up in the air in seconds no matter where you were. My next vehicle, a Jeep Cherokee, had the so-called space saver (yeah, like a vehicle with a trunk that large needs one). It was pure agony trying to jack it up. The jack was so light that it tipped over three times! I had to lie on the road on my back, hold the jack with my feet and crank it up. It took a loong time because simply TURNING the handle was quite difficult. We're always stuck with the handles that require a 180-degree turn because they're so close to the ground when you first start cranking. You turn halfway, flip to the next side, turn another 180 degrees and repeat. You get the idea how long it takes.

I backed Kazzie out and got familiarized with the jack. Let's see, first jam the folding wheel chock in the rear opposite side. Next, the jack. It was a nightmare. I had to struggled to pry the folding handle out because the way it's folded, it exerts pressure on the handle. After getting it out, I looked in the owner's manual. It says there are four "hooks" under the car. I used the screwdriver in the foam tool tray to pry off the cover and loosened the lugs first.

Next came 10 minutes of sheer frustration that makes me wonder when the Germans lost their minds. The owner's manual just says to wedge the jack under the jacking point. I seriously wonder if the jack was NOT meant to be used with my car. The lifting surface was too small to fit. The owner's manual shows that it'll cover the notch but it was about 1/10 of an inch too short to hold both sides of the jacking notch so that it would sit flat. Thinking I had done it wrong, I checked by crawling under the car (note, it was NOT jacked up, NEVER crawl under a jacked up vehicle.). I raised the jack and it still wouldn't fit perfectly. Shrugging, I tried to jack it up. The jack started "walking" under the car! I stopped and check again. There was no other way to fit the lifting surface underneath.

I made sure the foot of the jack was exactly under the notch and tried again. It started to "walk" again but I kept cranking. I scraped my knuckles on the pavement several times trying to get the handle to move. I was bleeding nicely from two fingers by now. It felt like hours before I had cleared the ground enough to crank the handle a full turn. I check the notch and was pretty unnerved to see that the lifting surface was not resting at a straight angle. After removing Kazzie's front left tire, I decided to scrub the other side to get the brake dust off. I hosed off the inside of the wheel. Slipping it back onto the hub is no easy feat. I had to grunt and struggle for a few minutes to get it lined up.

One thing to note: it was bright and sunny outside and I had a nice breeze that kept me from working up a sweat. I shuddered to think of having to do this in the pouring rain at night on a road in the middle of nowhere. Having MINI on-call doesn't really mean much to me. What if I can't find a public phone and the nearest town is 10 miles away? What if my cell phone battery dies? What if I'm in a "dead zone" where there's no coverage? (I use T-mobile, which is mostly okay despite running into "dropped calls" every so often. I ain't going to Sprint or Verizon anytime soon after hearing so many angry comments from their customers.)

I dropped Kazzie to the ground and tightened the bolts as hard as I could with the crisscross pattern. (Note: always use a crisscross pattern when tightening your lugs. For example, if you start with lug #1 at the top, skip the next one in a clockwise direction and tighten #3. Then, go to #2 and then #4. This ensures that the pressure is evenly distributed over the wheel.

To my shock, the jack had carved a small dent into the driveway! Kazzie weighs a lot less than my old Cherokee and it didn't dent my driveway. I'm not sure if the jacks's small base had anything to do with this. I switched the wheel chock to the other side and went around. This is where things got weird. I started jacking up the car again and this time, I had to lift it a few inches higher to get the wheel to clear the ground. I took the wheel off, cleaned out the inside and put it back on. For some reason, it gave me a lot more trouble than the left wheel. I had to struggle to get the holes lined up because getting the wheel lined up on the hub is FAR easier said than done. I finally got it back on. I put the lugs back on and lowered the car. After tightening the lugs, my hands were totally black. Worse, the axle grease mixed with the brake dust, making it almost impossible to wash off. I had to wash my hands twice with dishwashing soap and I still didn't get all the grease off my hands.

When at the dealer, they kept pushing me to get the tire replacement service. I still don't know if it was worth it but I've had to change a tire on my Jeep twice over a nine-year period and I intend to keep Kazzie for a long time. I anticipate having to do this at least once because I'm thinking about ditching the runflat tires if air filled tires make a significant difference in ride. This had me wondering: did BMW-MINI design the jack so that it would be so frustrating that people would splurge unnecessary extra money on extra roadside emergency service after the four-year free service runs out? Does anyone know of other car brands doing this? I shudder to think of having to jack up a 2008 Chevy Suburban or Land Rover Defender 110 with such a jack although I don't know if they don't come with one because of the weight.

It is my sincere hope that NONE of the owners on this board suffer a flat tire with their MINIs. I secretly wonder if BMW-MINI don't want us to be able to change the tires after the free emergency service runs out because I believe the jack is a bad design. It's too small and it kept slipping out from under the car. Just imagine trying to do this in the rain. If an owner was injured because his/her MINI slipped off the jack while trying to get the tire off, I truly believe that the design is at least somewhat to blame for this. I've seen the jacks on some uber-expensive BMWs and they're far more practical. There is a cover on the side of the car. You hook the jack in and the car goes up in seconds. There is no need to struggle with getting the jack lined up with a jacking point underneath the car. Watch the movie "Transporter." You'll see Jason Statham using the same kind of jack on his car. Why couldn't BMW install that kind of jacking system on the MINI?

Stay safe and happy motoring.

 

after reading your post, i clicked on your gallery to find that you have a clubman. something must have changed between the R53 and the newer cars. i routinely use my MINI supplied jack to change wheel/tires and brake pads at the track. i have a hydraulic floor jack, but i like the compact OE jack. i run spacers on the front end and that makes aligning the new wheel a bit more difficult, but still not too bad. a pair of gloves will quickly solve the dirty hand problem!

 

You think the MINI jacks are bad: my son has a 325i and that jack is one letter short of worthless - by the time the car is high enough to remove the tire the jack is leaning at such an extreme, precarious angle, I don't trust it. But I'm sure you'll get a thousand posts from folks that have used it for years with no problems and really like it and don't understand how you could possibily have any trouble with it...

 

2x4 + 1.5 ton bottle jack + 6in 4x8 = Cheap way to never have to use the OE jack again. Put the 2x4 under the door sill (Blimey Cabrio's blog explains this) and sit the jack on the 4x8 so it reaches high enough.

Not ideal to keep in the back of the car, but handy around the garage and certainly easier to use.

 

If you change tires frequently, say more than 2x a year, it makes sense to have a decent floor jack. I autocross and do track days so I use it often.
Try Harbor Freight for a lightweight aluminum jack. Mine has lasted five years.

 

must be something different about the clubmans.
i do tyre changes all the time using the OEM R53 jack.

(rotate front to back every 5K + swap from summer to winter tires).

i've got a variety of jacks at my disposal including three flavors of floor jacks and a hi-lift, but the OEM one is the one i'll dig out for the MCS.

if you go back far enough, there was a period where the US minis didn't
include a jack (unless you had a cooper without runflats)