Hi Countryman owners. I'm helping someone look at 2022-2024 CPO Countryman ALL4 models. To me, the F-series MINIs have been quite solid overall. That applies to Countryman-specific models still, right? Only difference I can see between Countryman and other MINIs of this era is the Countryman isn't built at Oxford, and they have a transfer system for the AWD system. In searching, I don't see reports of AWD system issues under 100k miles.

Would you put a loved one or friend (that you want to keep) in a CPO Countryman ALL4 and trust it to get to 100k miles with good maintenance but not expensive non-maintenance repairs? I would for F56, but I know the F60 is slightly different.

Thanks!

 

I have had mine for 3 years now and I had an F56 before it. So far I have had a few things, both the HPFP and the LPFP needed to be replaced around 50k miles and were not covered. So far those are the only major issues I have had but that but I have terrible luck so I would say that was just a fluke. I have a few friends that have had 0 issues thus far with their F60s. The other thing I have done was a frozen front brake caliper but that was simple and not all that expensive. I am at 55K miles now and nothing else is giving me any trouble and no leaks. One final thing is I have recently went Bootmod3 with a custom tune for 93 and e70 so we will see if we lose any reliability.

 

Thanks. That is interesting about the fuel pumps. I haven't seen reports on that for the F56 range, unless I am missing them. Good luck with the rest of your experience. Do you get the transmission or AWD components fluid changed?

 

I have not explored that yet, the dealer is always claiming it's life time fluid. I was planning to take a stab around 60k.

 

They're very reliable, yes. IIRC thanks to the F series, Mini sits #3/4 in Consumer Reports brand reliability behind Toyota/Lexus and Honda. That's actually what clued me in to look into the Countryman. I can't remember the URL, but I found a website that had a friendly interface for the database of driver reported issues for different cars and the Countryman reports dropped down in 2015 or 2016 and then were way down from 2017 on.

The main thing is the motor mount, which is expected to need to be replaced occasionally. Its my understanding the 2020 revision didn't address the biggest design flaw to it.

Its best to ignore the recommended oil change interval and just do every 5k, since that reduces wear on some parts, with a big example being the plastic oil filter housing.

Some older school mechanics - Scotty Kilmer is an example of an influencer from that school of thought - will say "lifetime fluid" things should be changed every 50k-60k. The manual in this F150 here says lifetime actually means 150k, unless you work the transfer case and diffs a bit more, which can drop the interval to 3k!!! The actual fluid you use is important of course.
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I plan to change some of those fluids before too long on my 2017 with close to 140k. This car has had just a couple minor issues over its entire life, the biggest being the motor mount that was replaced around 120k (I think 50k is more common?).

There are more expensive things that come up that are more rare, just like any car, which I wouldn't expect to apply in your example: A/C diverter, oil filter housing, park sensor, fuel pump.

IMO the main problem in the newer cars is a worrying level of privacy-violating telemetry, things like equipping cars with adaptive suspension but requiring the purchase to unlock the hardware electronically (not sure if Mini does this but BMW does), and a lack of manual models.

 

Oh, one thing I've heard from Mini folks is that the 4-cylinder engine is more reliable than the 3-cylinder, but I'm not sure if that only applies to older models or not. Maybe for F-series it doesn't matter?

Keep in mind just in general, these are direct injection turbo cars. So its helpful to have the fuel and intake system inspected occasionally so that oil and carbon buildup doesn't get too high.

And then IIRC as of 2022 these cars come with rock guards for the main and auxiliary cooler already installed, but that'd otherwise be another item to consider to prevent issues in the case of a rock coming into the grille.

 

Curious if you have any more info on the 4 cylinders being more reliable? I'm not extremely familiar with either engine but i can imagine a 3 cylinder having more vibrations and having more issues long term.
Currently my wife has a 2019 Cooper S Countryman All 4 E which we've put a little over 20k miles on in the last year. It's currently at around 65k miles with not major issues to report. The upper motor mount just started vibration and as others have said it is a fairly common issue. I've got one on order, but i suspect i'll have to replace it again as others mentioned Mini didn't really fix the issue. But if i get another 60k out of it, i'll be ok. I do a lot of maintenance on the vehicle as i'm a mechanic by trade so take that for what its worth. We love this car and do a lot of camping and road tripping out of it, specifically in Mojave desert and Joshua tree. We recently have started camping more in Bureau of Land Management places that are fairly remote and we have never once doubted our car. It's the most reliable vehicle we've ever owned, previous car was 2005 Toyota prius, and we wouldn't hesitate to drive it anywhere. Just drove 2600 miles coast to coast in the US while pulling a trailer.

 

The new revised mount I got is just as floppy as the one I took out so I figure it will be broken again soon enough. I have been considering something I found on ECSTuning which are some power flex bushings to take up some of the space in the stock mount to give it a little more strength.

https://www.ecstuning.com/b-powerfle...pff5-1321~pfx/

 

+1 ^^

 

Re the three cylinder, they are tough. There was a reported issue with injector leaking gas on the cylinder walls, washing off the oil. But that injector is the same part number as the 4 cylinder. It was revised in I think August 2017. I have heard the 3 takes longer to heat up in the Winter, so there can be oil dilution. Gas in the oil that does not burn off. Also oil level rises due to gas. Live in Colorado previoulsy had a 3 and had an oil change in the middle of Winter. Was tols there was a slight scent of gas in the oil. I did short trips, but log trips from tim e to time. I loved that 3 honestly, a great motor in the hardtop. Hit 42mpg from Windsor CO to Farmington NM (about 430 miles or so, each way). Enough pick up for me. Had no trouble in the mountains.

 

Thanks for posting that link! ECS Tuning blocks VPNs so I cant access their website. I should start a thread asking about any earlier adopters' experiences.

And thanks for sharing your knowledge @cargusjoh, I didn't really know any more about it than what @idkmybffjjill said.