Hi,
I just bought a 2005 R53 and I love it. 75k miles and it's in great shape. I did a lot of research on here before making the purchase so a big THANK YOU for all the great advice from everyone out there.
I plan to make a few mods for PM rather than performance (e.g reinforcing plates for the strut towers, tensioner protector etc.).

One quick question - since it came with the Navi pack, there's no coolant temp sensor. A bit disappointing - considering every other cool gadget the car has. I'd imagine there's an aftermarket gauge I can install that has the same look/feel as the MINI gauges. Any tips on that?

On the up-side - I was pleasantly surprised to find that MINI had replaced the gas pedal with a LOUD pedal.

 

Congrats on your MINI, I just bought one about a month ago almost the same as yours. Still loving it, but the right upper strut mount completely went out in about 1000 miles of highway driving so the reinforcement plates would be a good upgrade. I ordered mine from madness motorworks and new oem strut mounts off of ebay. Mine came with Chronos so not sure on the coolent temp but I'm pretty sure that I have seen talks on this forum about simply replacing the standard coolent temp. with the one for a gauge and using oem gauge pack in front of cig. lighter to mount it. Good luck with your new purchase!

 

Congrats...some days I pine for my R53 and wish I'd never made the "upgrade" to the R56.

 

Congrats on the purchase and welcome!