This may interest you as it did me a number of years ago, in how they came up with the design of the r53.
100 miles in, had to bite the bullet and get an exhaust, went for a Gravity one and apart from the fit being terrible, it sounds absolutely superb, and was £290, where as the Milltek is £650. There are so many more jobs to do but so pleased to be driving it regularly and enjoying it. 23MPG average so far…… ♂️
yeah it’s done a fair bit of town work and idling etc, so I think it will come up to maybe 25mpg. Even back in 2010 when I had a 40k miles car, it used to average around 28mpg.
I only get about 15 - 17mpg from mine. A full tank is just over 13.2 gallons and that’s good for 3 round trips to/from London (150 miles) plus a bit of local running around (50 - 70 miles). It is quite heavily tuned though and I tend to drive quite briskly.
I've been given the task of sourcing a Mini for my son's girlfriend. She has a budget of £4500 and needs an Auto. She can get insurance on a Cooper S but fuel consumption would be a concern as commutes around Birmingham. Unfortunately I'm no use with a spanner so worried I'm going to pick up a pile of trouble tbh. I know nothing about Mini's, confusing reading about which year is best, avoid early ones but then they are the most desirable, avoid MK2's as Peugeot engines, auto gearboxes are trouble, cambelts vs chains etc etc. They also seem to be very spec sensitive. Prices are all over the place, same year cars can be £2 - £3k different in price. Just some advice please, which one would you go for in auto and in budget ?
you are better off with a late (2006) supercharged, than a 2007-2012 cooper s from a reliability perspective, like way better off, but the newer model will be cheaper on fuel and is quicker in stock form
Something like this ? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/38702633...Wex47KAQUK&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY
that’s pretty top end money wise. So I’d be expecting a really clean underneath with little rust, no evidence of any rust around the tailgate or rear lights (super common) and check for the supercharger having been serviced if near 100k miles and the original exhaust not being totally rotten out
As others have said and will say, the one to go for is the supercharged Mk1 R53 facelift (2005/6) as opposed to the turbocharged Mk2 R56 (2006 - 2013). However, the R56 is a bit more refined and isn’t as thirsty as the R53.
I test drove 7 minis My friend researched the in and outs of the R53 and spent months finding "good" ones to test drive Out of 7 I chose mine but I had already made my mind up when I saw the reg plate it was the one I was having. She was the last test drive and low mileage and a good spec with most of the packages I believe Check MOT history as well
Do you mean the Cooper S R53 is the one to go for in the range rather than a standard Cooper or Mini One Auto ? Yeah ... I read about the exhaust.
I don’t know a huge amount about the Mini One but they have a lot less power than an “S” and they have a very different auto-box. The One has a horrible step-less CVT thing, which if the CVT box I had in a Punto back in the day was anything to go by, made it felt like the car was being powered by a wound up rubber band. The S has a proper and fairly responsive 6 speed auto with a Sport setting, so the driver can bang through the box using the gear lever like a rally driver or alternatively use the steering wheel paddles. NB: the paddles are not set up like most flappies, so rather than it being pull left paddle for downshifts and pull right paddle for upshifts, the paddles on both sides are set up as press for down and pull for up.
She passed her test some years ago but never owned a car, usually just borrowed her Moms….she’s 26 so hopefully reasonably sensible
