OK, so I may seem to be a confused individual....but not in a true enthusiast sense.

I sell cars for a living, and was dyed in the wool VW/Audi/Porsche for a long time.

Those cars are great and all, but they start to nickel and dime you to death.

So I now sell Subaru's, and have had a few of them....they're great cars.

I also have a 57' Beetle and a 90' 240 Volvo sedan that I look forward to putting a 5.0 V8 swap in....


So we got a car in on trade the other day and although I've always liked the looks of the Mini's, I never really considered owning one or had any real experience with one....and the one I did drive had the CVT trans and I hated it.

But this car speaks to me!

It's a 2002 S that was bought and maintained its' whole life at the same dealership, BMW/Mini of Cincinnati.

It's had two owners, and the car is absolutely Flawless inside and out.....the only flaws on the whole car is a chip in the windshield, a couple of chips in the hood, and a very slight bit of rash on one of the wheels.
It has 70k miles and it's a 6 speed.....un-modded.....but not for long!

Good carfax history and like I said, it's had all the recalls done and it was maintained at the dealer.

The car was the 161st car imported to the US.....it came with a T-shirt and everything.

It has Xenons and a few other things, such as the sunroof....it had a $24k MSRP when new.

I've driven it the last couple of days and I think I want to make it mine.....and do a few tasteful mods to it, such as coil-over's, wheels, and maybe an intake and underdrive pulley to begin with.

I haven't dug around too deeply on the forums yet, so I don't know what all to look out for on these early cars......I did see that they may have some cold start problems and did notice that it takes a few seconds of cranking before it comes to life, but there's no stutter or hesitation to speak of.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks, and I look forward to joining the Motoring ranks.

Chris






It'll be a prefect garage mate to the Beetle....pretty much the same color...

 

I would say definitely become a guy! It beats the alternative lol.

SWEET BEETLE!~

 

HAHA!! It's looking that way!

Also, I thought I'd drop a line saying that if you're located in the SouthWest OH or Northern KY area, I'm the founder and head chairman for a local all European road rallye and show called the Dub Dash.

It's open to all years and makes of European cars, and we've only had a few Mini's show up over the years.

It's always the first weekend of Oct. and this is our Ninth year.

We have bands play Saturday night and have a campout at the grounds.

We usually pull 250 cars from 10 states plus Canada.

Here's my facebook page with photo highlights from all the years.

http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?...17372&v=photos

Her's the main site.

http://dubdash.com

 

Welcome to the forum, VW and MINI, what a good combination, have owned both, like my MINI better. My first VW was a '58 36hp Beetle, it kicked off my love affair with foreign cars. It's been 52 years of fun and frustration, it isn't over yet!

 

HAHA!! Nice.....58 is a great year....

I understand this car has a timing chain, so no maint. there....

But what all can I expect to do as I get closer to 100k?

Also, who might I turn to for aftermarket parts such as an underdrive pulley?

What pulley and combination of mods can I do to get 200 reliable HP or more?

Intake, Pulley, software (is it solder-in chipset or flash?) exhaust?

 

Love both of 'em!

Check out WayMotorWorks for any of your modding needs. You'll be very happy with them.

 

Thanks for the heads up....

I love the brown Clubmans....

What's the optimal offset for a Mini regarding aftermarket wheels?

The ones I was thinking of are 16x8.5" with @ a 30 et

 

Well, the deed is done....

As of today I am officially a Mini owner....

Can anyone confirm my above questions about the wheels and the Chip-tuning?

 

16x 8.5 et30 will 'poke' out a little bit...

a 7.5 et 35 is about flush with the fender...at least in a 17 it is... you can get away with a little more in a 15-16

it depends if your into that 'poke / stretch' look or not, as with the right tires theyll probably fit

there are things like the Unichip out there for tuning... I had one once and was a blast, though they are known to be sketchy as far as reliability goes. There are some good tunes out there too, like from RMW