We need a separate thread about R53's... absolutely love them. My mates recently bought 2x cheap ones for £2000 each, they are clean and MOT'd but he's a mechanic anyway, I took his out and he's done the intercooler, pulley and exhaust and it was just amazing driving one again, genuine hairs on my neck just being out in one. My last one was a 2006 Checkmate, the very very last of the supercharged ones, It's the only car I had a tear in my eye selling, and I'd have one tomorrow.
It’s basically JCW power but without JCW brakes and suspension. It does have a LSD though. It’s probably the funnest car I’ve owned so far. I tried a newer R56 (ie: turbocharged) but it just didn’t have the same slightly frenzied attitude as the supercharged R53 and the current models just leave me cold as they’re too big, too heavy and look like they’ve been designed by a committee.
Mine’s a 2005 R53 with a 17%(?) smaller pulley, bigger/better intercooler, bigger injectors, an air intake kit and a Miltek stainless exhaust. It also had a full engine rebuild at the same time as the tuning work. Its pound to pleasure ratio is matched only by my equally endorphine inducing spaniel.
Worst car I ever had for torque steer was a 2016 Focus ST3, the 250hp one on 19 inch wheels, honestly it was utterly terrifying in the wet, had an open diff, so would find a puddle and just light a wheel up before you could get off the throttle then just launch you into oncoming traffic or the hedge, it's the only car I've just not wanted to drive in the wet.
They are, had this discussion with a salesmen at BMW when he enquired if we’d like the updated model. Told him exactly the same and his reply was consumers surveys said wanted it to be bigger than BMW’s first iteration. Ruined a great small car….
I think the worst modern ish car for torque steer was a mates Astra vxr when I was younger. It had around 300brake and was horrendous haha
My sister has a Cooper S 2017 auto Clubman, and tbf, it's a really really nice car. It's no R53 but as a daily driver, I'd have that and a R53 for sunday blasts.
We have a narrow driveway living in a 1930’s house and Mini is the maximum we can drive down it, with the mirrors folded in. Mrs Mini is the Clubman mine was a 2006 R53 which I sold last year to fund my lads motorcycle appetite.
It’ll be nuts at 300bhp I’m sure there will be Mini forums that cover such madness but check the transmission ratings.
Yes, lovely machines. It was the high mileage that caught my eye on that one. You can enjoy and use a high miler. Missed the end of the auction so dunno what it did. Obviously didn’t make reserve though as it’s not in the sold section.
My t5 has a clutch judder from new despite many complaints during warranty period, its 8 years old and still as bad, I found vw warranty to be shite.vw even said to contact the local dealers manager who would never ring me ,fecker.
They kept saying they couldn't get it to do it in their tests, it does it all the time, iv actually been put off buying vw but maybe I should have pushed harder.their loss however, my next van will not be vw, iv spent money recently and surprise it wasn't with vw, I bought a new abarth competizione brand new two years ago ( completely bonkers machine, I loved it) and more recently a 400 mile gr yaris circuit ( amazing bit of engineering)
