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I have been reading NAM and some of the amazing build threads and helpful comments for years before purchasing my first Mini.
I spent years recovering from a neck injury and spinal surgery after being rear ended in a car accident 2016. Last year I had the
opportunity to pick up a 2004 r53 MCS very cheaply, $3250 AU ($ 2400 US). It was licensed, running, except it felt like the whole
front end was shifting under acceleration and braking. It also had a sunroof which I did not want and no chrono pack which was
important as I did not want to have to turn my neck to look at the speedo. (I found out though the r53's in Australia have the tacho
in the centre with the speedo above the steering wheel).
I bought it anyway with the thought that I would pass it onto my son if the opportunity to buy a hardtop with the chrono pack and Recaro's
ever came my way. I'll add some photos of the 04 when I find them...
I purchased a 2006 factory JCW with over 240,000 k's site unseen from Melbourne and had it transported 3419 km's to Perth. Due to
Covid issues it took over two months to arrive. Here it is...
S650 CD drive
S657 Radio, BMW Business/MINI Boost
S674 Hi-Fi system Harman Kardon
S692 Preparation, BMW 6-CD changer I-bus
Driver assistance and lightning
S520 Fog lights
S530 Air conditioning
S546 Revolution counter
S547 Cockpit chrono package
S548 Kilometre speedo
S550 On-board computer
S563 Light package
Wheels and drive
S214 Automatic stability control (ASC+T)
S228 Sports suspension settings Plus
S249 Multifunction f steering wheel
S255 Sports leather steering wheel
S262 ITS - Head airbag
S2CM MINI LM Rad 5 Star Bullet m. Notlauf
S2TA Differential lock 25%
Environment and safety
S345 Chrome Line Interieur
S381 Outs.mirror black/roof vhcle colour
S3AL John Cooper Works Kit
S810 National version Australia
S823 Hot-climate version
S825 Radio control Oceania
S845 Acoustic fasten seat belt reminder
S853 Language version, English
S864 Dealer List Overseas
S876 Radio frequency 315 MHz
S880 On-board literature, English
S895 Additional fan
S896 Daytime driving lights
S8SM Car ident. number visible from outside
Other equipment
S169 EU3 exhaust emissions standard
S925 Dummy-SALAPA
S962 Deleted, licence plate support front
S9AA Outer skin protection
When purchasing a car interstate in Western Australia it is a requirement that the car be inspected prior to registering it here. I
booked the inspection a few days after it arrived. I now need to fix a cracked park light on the front bumper, a blown number plate
globe on the hatch an engine oil leak, replace a CV boot as it is cracked (the inspector said it looked like it was not fitted correctly
as the clamps where not attached correctly) and that was about it.
I have only driven it from the transport depot when it arrived and to / from the inspection place down the road. The JCW exhaust
sounds incredible, the Recaro seats are the best I have ever sat in, the JCW brakes are incredible and the whole car is just awesome.
Booked it in to my local mechanic to check where the oil leak is coming from (likely to be the oil cooler/ oil filter housing) and the CV
boot replaced. Will find a park light at a wreckers somewhere in Perth (buying parts interstate and overseas takes forever as Perth is
so isolated) and will take it back to be inspected and registered. Once that is done I may haver to create a thread detailing what work
I've done and any driving adventures I go on (Covid restrictions permitting).
I finally found a photo of my first 04 MCS. This is one that I must have ripped off Gumtree the day I bought the car. I seem to have misplaced all the other photos as they are no longer on my phone and can't find them on my PC.
The blue MCS is named "Goo Moto". The number plate surrounds and hatch window had Mr McGoo Motors on them, branding from one of the car yards that was selling the car. I started scratching off Mr Mc then became lazy and left Goo Moto so I didn't have to remove the rest. It kinda stuck. Photo from the day I picked up my first MCS.
This one has had a little bit of work done.
Upper engine mount with Super Pro insert.
Lower engine support with Super Pro inserts.
Replaced Air con clutch coil.
Carbon fibre rear support and carbon front strut brace.
Cheap eBay bluetooth added to the original stereo.
Bridgestone RE003's to replace the bald runflats.
Normal servicing stuff.
This is the one that my son now drives around in. I love the colour of this. It has been such a cheery car to drive.
As for my new JCW, yes definitely worth the wait though I did take a bit of a chance by purchasing it site unseen.
I really wanted one with Recaros but I had only seen two other R53 Mini Cooper S's with them for sale in Australia in the
last couple of years. I think the high mileage on this one probably put other people off.
My last two cars were also great handling hatches. Both Proton Satria GTI's that had Recaro seats one with a swapped
Mitsubishi EVO 4G63 motor.
The r53's really do make you smile when you drive them.
Best name ever! I never name my cars, although my neighbor calls mine “little ****” but I don’t mind. In the states we call that electric blue, I believe you call it laser blue. Australia and New Zealand, really cool countries in my book, with flight of the conchords being one of my favorite shows. Especially the New Zealand diplomat visit to Australia episode, I pissed my pants on that one.
I remember watching flight of the concords once (I do not watch tv often) and it was really funny.
I don't think my JCW will have a name unless anything obvious comes to mind.
There's been a delay in getting the car registered. Everything is fixed except for the front park light. I can't get a front park light locally. I was about to remove the one from my sons r53 when I noticed it had a 2cm crack in it so it'd just fail the inspection again. The wreckers locally don't have any, BMW/Mini in my city have the part listed as a "special order" and want $135 for it (the park light is literally a poor quality piece of plastic) so I would have to wait weeks for the part to come in. Ended up ordering it on eBay as it's often quicker to order parts from overseas than interstate :( .
I wanted to see if anything would go wrong but it drove like a dream.
# Oil change / filter and housing gasket done.
# New park light.
# Drivers side CV boot replaced.
# Cusco front strut brace and rear chassis brace installed.
# Bluetooth added to stereo & steering wheel controls working.
# Stripes removed from the rear and the roof.
I was going to remove all the stripes from the bonnet but when I removed the faded & cracked stripes from the roof the paint underneath was in shocking condition. I will either need to get the roof repainted (white due to harsh summers we have here) or may cheap out and see if I can get a chequered white vinyl roof sticker made up and installed.
I have MINI led drivers lights (spotlights) to be installed as well as the brackets which I will piece together to fit the r53 (the ones I bought are for later model MINI's. I will probably wait for the covers to arrive first.
Also contemplating picking up a set of R107 R53 GP 18" wheels (OEM) and some Bridgestone RE003's as they will be lighter than the 17's that are on there now and I want to keep the car as OEM as I can.
Hey man, absolutely gorgeous car, great to hear you love it!
I run a website called The JCW Register from here in Australia, and would love to have you add your cars details to the register www.thejcwregister.com/the-jcw-register
Theres a couple of guys with JCWs over in WA, ive seen a few show up over the years over there, but WA seems to be fairly quiet from owners, so great to see another enthusiast enjoying their JCW!
Hiya, sorry it took so long. I have just added the details to the register. Don't see too many r53's driving around in Perth, the r53 JCW's that are advertised over here are sold really quickly and I have only seen a few available in the last few years. It's the only one I have seen with the factory fitted Recaros.
It's my daily driver so it has a few battle scars from SUV drivers opening their doors onto the mini in the last couple of weeks alone plus rocks flying off mining 4x4's while driving to and from Kalgoorlie.
Just waiting on Australia post to deliver my 1 remaining r95 wheel, for some reason they only dropped off 3 and the other 1 is floating around their depot somewhere. Once that arrivers I will be either getting them powder coated or painted in bronze and will pick up some non runflats. Plan on having the roof and rear spoiler painted in Mini white at the same time. I was planning to get the dings and scratches fixed on the rest of the car but after the latest dent that was added to the drivers door today there really is no point. Maybe I should gaffa tape some pillows to the doors when I park my car at the shops
Got a picture of inside, i know the MINIs down there have the huge Tach instead of the speedo.
I'll take a photo of the interior when I get back to Perth. My JCW has the chrono pack so the tachometer is on top of the steering column with the speedo. My sons 2004 has the centre tachometer I'll grab a photo of that too.
from what I understand the later 2004 to 2006 models had the centre speedo as I think the gov either changed the design rules or simply decided to allow them to have the speedo in the centre.
The huge tacho in the centre of my sons car does look really cool 😀
There is a Union Jack phone holder (for a F56 mini) that I attached to the back of the tacho, just had to drill an additional hole in the phone holder and bend it slightly. I also added Bluetooth to the original stereo.
The dash mat is to stop some of the heat coming off the dash and are made by a local Perth company (they only make them for right hand drive Mini's). We had a 40°C on Tuesday (104°F) in Perth and anything that reduces some heat is welcome, also helps preserve the dash too. The JCW water bottle gets used regularly .
This is the only R53 JCW I had seen advertised for sale in Australia in the last 4 years that has the Recaros fitted.
I dropped off my R95 wheels to a tyre shop close by to have them restored. They will need to weld a small section of the gutter rash, checked the wheels for balance before I left and confirmed two were buckled slightly so they will correct that too. Due to the corrosion on them (I bought them off eBay from the UK) they will blast them, then send the wheels off to be powdercoated then paint the wheels in a bronze colour (not sure how they will look as the colour I chose is semi silver / bronze) and clearcoated.
The wheels came with the older style John Cooper Works caps, only issues is the metal backing has corroded and there are bubbles in the caps. Since I have not seen new ones for sale anywhere I am going to try and restore them myself. Not sure how yet but I will document how I do it if I manage to save them.
I ordered some tyres while I was there, Yokohama GT AE51. I have no idea what they are like, I just wanted tyres that are good in the wet. They were a lot more expensive than I expected but Michelin, Bridgestone and Pirelli didn't have any stock in Western Australia (I wanted non runflats) and they would have to be transported from over east and the issues we are having with transport at the moment that could take forever.
In the US, the xenons have auto-leveling, and the halogen cars don’t have anything beyond the screws on the lights. I’ve only ever seen the manual controls in photos, and I’ve struck out on finding info about how exactly it works.
Just finished a short road trip from Perth, Western Australia to Kalgoorlie, then onto Esperance where the photos below were taken. Stayed a couple of days camping in a farmers paddock a 5 minute walk from the Kalgan River in Albany then headed back to Perth. Round trip of 1885 km
A big Rock at Cape Le Grande National Park in Esperance Surprising what can fit in the back of a Mini Would you believe this beach is called Hellfire Bay... Local wildlife taking a stroll down to the Hellfire Bay beach. This is called Luck Bay. Behind me taking the photo is a 4x4 and SUV parking lot as this beach has 4x4 access. To the right of this photo two dolphins were playing about 3 meters off shore.
When I arrived back at Perth I realised my two rear tyres were down to the canvas on the inside in a couple of spots. Car is now parked until my R95 wheels are finished being restored and painted bronze.
There was a sign at Lucky Bay stating the beach sand at the Cape Le Grand has been scientifically proven to be the whitest beach sand in Australia. Fun fact, the sand is not like normal beach sand made up of broken shells. The sand is actually broken down rock. It has the most incredible fluffy texture when you run it through your fingers but as soon as you walk on it it compresses and is really firm.
BTW swimming in that water is incredible. Very cold but a welcome reprieve from Perth where we had over 40°C for 4 days straight and one of those was 43.5°C / 110.3°F.
Quick update. Had some well used R95 rims shipped over from the UK from eBay. Had them restored. Two rims were buckled slightly, the gutter rash had to be welded in a few places rims sandblasted because of all the corrosion and powder coated to make them smooth again. The rims were then painted in a bronze like colour that I selected from a bunch of colour swabs. Couldn't see a colour I liked but the rims turned out awesome.
Good point. The shipping was cheapish for the wheels only about $260 au and the wheels were roughly $1100.
I priced new R95 or R107 wheels and they would have cost double that with shipping.
Even if I'd bought new wheels I still would have wanted them recoloured.
I could have saved half the cost by buying some aftermarket rims, likely would have saved a bit of weight too. I just love the design of the R95's.
