Good Morning,

I'm new to the whole Mini World and loving it so far. I bought a 2006 R50 Base Hatchback Mini. I'm loving the opportunities to fix it up and would appreciate any advice from other owners on how to keep this mini running for a long time. It has a few hiccups I need to address and take care of before it's truly road worthy for me to be safe driving. I'm from SoCal, Military Veteran, and love to be out doors keeping busy on what ever project has my attention at the moment.

Thanks for the opportunity to be part of this community.

Matthew

 

More mechanically inclined members will follow. I will start with advising oil change with full synthetic every 5,000 miles and use good gas. I only use Shell VPower in my MINI. I use the cheep stuff in my daily driver but the MINI likes the good stuff.

Post some pictures of your MINI and tell us more about it and your specific questions.

 

Welcome and Congrats. Regular maint like oil changes every 5k miles and use premium fuel will make them last. It also likely needs front control arm bushings as they always were out.

 

Good Morning,

I will definitely get Synthetic only. That's all I use in my cars always and forever. I have used good gas so far in it. I have a few things I have to do to it, so the oil change will wait until I can find the source of the oil leak. I'm pretty sure it's coming from the valve cover seal so I will replace that soon when I get a little more money. Thank you for the reply. I also did add some pictures in my album section.

 

Good Morning,

Thanks. I definitely will be doing that for the mini. I have a lot of work for this little car. Right now I have to replace the right axle due to a oil leak caused by the valve cover seal. It has a lot of oil everywhere. I have to replace the control arms on both sides, they are starting to click. The power steering is whining when I turn the wheel and makes little noises still I'm not sure what they are. The power steering is full. The secondary air pump is making a rattling noise as well. This little car is my project, it has a different color passenger side door as well so I went to the local pick your part and got the right color door to make it a little bit better. I have done a lot to it so far. I replaced all the brakes and rotors and bleed the lines, it had cloth interior so I went and put the leather interior in it from a pick your part again. I just have to replace the seat belt tensioners from the seat cause the leather seats came from a crashed mini. I just took the old seat belts off the other seats and will attach them to the new seats. I added new badges since the old ones were worn out and have added all LED lights along with more things.

 

2006 Mini Cooper R50 Base

Ugly Stock Soiled seats

Major oil leak needing fixed and axle along with control arm bushings fixed

New-ish Leather seats picked from a crashed mini at my local Pick you Part.

Another look at them

Picture from my mechanic showing Seatbelt tensioner code due to seats coming from crashed mini. I'm gonna take the old belts from the other seats and attach to the new seats.

smallish tear in the seat I will have to sew up


Needs a door change.

Found and picked at local pick your part. I'm going to clean and install on the mini sometime soon.

 

Great looking car -- it's great to see these older MINIs stay on the road!