I have 2600 miles on my 06 JCW with port installed JCW suspension and strut brace. I littlerally ate through a set of tires in this time. I took my car to a race shop to see how bad I was in terms of allingment. The port install SUCKED. I was .55 inches on left front and and .56 on right front. No wonder I destroyed the tires. I thought that the twitchyness was just my nerves in coming from an AWD car. I was wrong.

Word of advice, make 100% sure that your allingment is correct when you get your new car.

Thanks to Roger Kraus Racing in Castro Valley for litterally setting me straight.

 

Port installed, I thought the acessories we're ethier dealer or factory installed.

 

On the 06, you could get the JCW suspension ordered with the car, but it came as a PDI (right acronym?) installed option. My dealer didnt do the install. (but should have checked the allignment)

 

What do you mean by port installed? Somebody at the port (not a dealer) installed the suspensions?

As you drove, was the car pulling (not tramlining) like it needed an alignment? How could you not know something ... did you never look at the tires?

I ask because when I had mine installed, I had alignment issues at it finally took the MINI regional rep to come look to sort it out and it was only an issue of "settling" on the springs. After less than 1000 miles it tracked true and alignment was dead on.

 

Hey Chows4us,

I don't mean to hijack the thread, but I'm curious about your comments because my '06 just arrived to the dealer and they are in the process of installing a JCW suspension. Did your car pull (or something else?) for the first 1,000 miles? Anything I should keep an eye out for?

 

When it was first installed, it was pulling a bit and the dealer said they couldnt get it aligned to spec for camber. The mechanic would drive it and it was fine, Wife and I in the car, not fine. They were actually talking about adding camber plates.

Went to a different dealer and they couldn't get it to spec either. They called MINI and I went back while the Regional rep was there (it was one of the first JCW suspensions they had put in I think) and they sorted it out as near spec as possible and said the springs just need to settle down and sure enuff, that was true. Now its fine. took about 800 miles.

 

I think this means installed at VDC. I know when my MINI was arriving at the port, I spoke to my MA and he asked if I wanted any last minute accessories, e.g. aero kit, different rims, etc. before being transported to VDC for the final QC and clean up. My MA indicated that VDC does a lot of these types of installs and that the dealer only does the very minor ones, e.g. roof graphics, strips, LoJack, etc.

 

Unless like my dealer, which seems to cater to the rich urban types, who wants to install everything at inflated labor charges and extra time!

So the moral of this thread is to have the alignment checked if any suspension component is changed!

 

Your MA is wrong. Although I do believe the VDC can do some installs, dealers will install anything including the JCW kit. In fact, most dealers do not install graphics but might subcontract the work out (getting good graphics installers isn't cheap and they are hard to keep). LoJack is done by LoJack people, not the dealer althouth the dealer will try to sell it to you (and take their cut of the profit).

Interesting though.

 

I have an '06 cooper s and had the JCW suspension installed at the dealer. No problems to report with 1100 miles so far. The suspension is great! The original 17" runflat tires stunk, so I put a set of Yokohama Parada Spec 2's on. Really smoothed out the ride. With the JCW suspension and the run flats the car felt nervous, and the car followed every groove on the So. California freeways. The car tracks nicely with the Parada's because the car doesn't follow every darn groove on the freeway. You will feel the bumps with the JCW suspension, but its not too bad. The non run flat tires are a big plus for the ride and definately improve the overall grip. I had an '05 cooper s with hsport springs and comp. rear sway bar. That suspension setup was firm!!! The '05 car handled great, but the ride was rough, especially on poorly paved streets.

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by katmeho
I have 2600 miles on my 06 JCW with port installed JCW suspension and strut brace. I littlerally ate through a set of tires in this time.

Since the install was factory authorized (I would assume any work done before delivery is factory authorized) did they replace your tires under warranty?

 

Yes, this was a VDC install at Port Humene. The car "felt" twitchy, but I was coming from an AWD R32, and I thought, front wheel drive, lots of power with JCW, smaller tires (215) it must be me, it must be me thinking the car "floats" when in reality its not. Well I was wrong. I did notice exceissve wear on the tires, and I even took it to service because the steering wheel is not perfectly centered. I was told that because I was running Goodyear Eagle F1's (which were dealer installed BTW) which are "so soft" that it was natural for the wheel to be off center given the wear on the tires. I didnt want to fight them, because I was trying to establish a relatioship with the service dept. This was my first service, they had 2 other things to fix on the car (which they did graciously). See I bought the car in San Diego, but live in NorCal, trying to establish the relationship with a service dept that the car was new to.

I was told by my original MA in San Deigo that suspension warrenty is 2000 miles, after that they say "it could be thrown out by pot holes and such". Well, anyone who looks at the numbers will know this is not a pothole adjustment, this was ill set by whoever installed the JCW suspension. I have asked my MA to get me in touch with a regional rep so we can talk about it. I'm not looking for freebee's but I want MINI to cover the costs of the allignment I had to get done and the 2 tires (Goodyear Eagle F1's) that were burned up, or some credit of some sort..something of good faith .