i have a mini cooper i accidentally bought a cooper s back bumper can i change the exhaust or buy a cooper s exhaust to make it work?? i figured it should be workable but i want to be sure.

 

You would need to rework the area that houses the tool kit....major PITA and money.....I would just sell the exhaust.....IMO

 

what about replacing the plastic that goes around the exhaust?

 

I've seen it done before, with the Alta exhaust. It should mount up where the justacooper muffler mounts (perhaps with some modification), but you'll have to either A) get an MCS rear bumper B) replace the rubber trim on your stock bumper with that of an MCS or C) modify your current rubber trim (that would look a little weird though).

 

The car in my sig has the same mod...S rear bumper original non S trim

 

You can fit the bumper if you change out the black plastic trim pieces. If your Cooper is '04 or earlier, use the pieces from your bumper. If your Cooper is '05 or newer, the black trim is incompatible and you'll have to buy the older style pieces from a dealer or other source.

Changing to an S exhaust has its issues. You'll lose your spare tire, the S exhaust is quite heavy, and it will make negligible performance difference for your non-S engine.

 

I don't think you'd have to lose your spare tire. I'm pretty sure Alta's exhuast will go around it (could be wrong).

 

Yeah... installing this "just because you have it" is sort of like reaching over a dollar to pick up a dime...

1. you will lose the spare
2. the MCS system weighs more than the MC system
3. adding additional piping and resonator to the exhaust path... will likely decrease performance...
4. will need MCS bumper trim to fit (we did the reverse as well: MCS bumper with MC trim, so I doubt this would be too difficult).
5. will need to figure out how to add the driver's side resonator hangers. I'm not sure the passenger side hangers are the same either...

Say "Doh!"... sell the MCS system... and move on...

 

What kind of exhaust is it? That would help. If it has two mufflers... yikes. Also, something to consider is that if you sell it, you may wind up losing the money you could use to install it. But, it will mostly depend on which exhaust you bought.

Examples of what I'm talking about...

Two mufflers =



Alta, single muffler system =

 

You guys misunderstood the OP. He has the S bumper only and thought he might need to buy a matching exhaust to use the bumper. To use the bumper, he only needs to swap out the black trim pieces.

 

Ahhhhhh. That makes so much more sense.

My bad, my bad.

Yes, replacing that rubber trim should do the job. If you wanted, I guess, you could see about whether or not that Alta exhaust (pictured above) would fit, but it would cost a lot more than just replacing the rubber trim.

 

Doh! Yep... I see now...

Much, MUCH easier to make the S bumper work with the MC exhaust than making the MCS exhaust work with the MC trim.

As mentioned, I did the MCS bumper conversion. I ordered the trim from the local MINI dealer and I believe the cost was under $100 at the time. I had to trim a few of the tabs, but otherwise, it was a straight-forward mod.