Hi all... I was a proud owner of an April 2003 built R53 (chili red/black) . It was the best car I've driven! We parted ways after 130K happy miles when the cylinder head developed a crack. Moved onto an Abarth for a few years and some other hatches, and now I'm coming back to MINI.

In a few days, I'll be picking up a 2020 Clubman S (20K miles, seems to be well-kept based on CarFax history). I haven't followed the MINI world closely, so I'd like to ask the community for a list of tings to pay attention to when picking up the car. Is there an issue that's common to the F55/56 that I should know about? I know the MINI reliability has increased significantly since the R50/53 days, which I'm looking forward to experience first hand

Thank you so much for your time`

 

Preaching to the wise i suppose, but...

Change oil at 5,000 mile intervals!

Enjoy the heck out of it for about 60-80k miles.

Then check here.

My experience, going from the R53 (175k miles, two Works motors), to the R56 (Justa), to the B38 (F56 with the three cylinder engine), to the F56 (JCW Hardtop - now at 158k) is that the latter is reliable.

The F56 is also an undersquare engine - more stroke than bore - and with the turbo it makes excellent torque from 2k all the way to 5k. Less downshifting, no need to wring its neck.

However, in the wet be advised that the eDLC (goddamn brake based limited slip) will eat your brakes in 30k miles if you aren't gentle with the throttle. Controlling wheelspin can put a LOT of wear on the brakes.

But mostly, just have a great time!

Cheers,

Charlie

 

My vote is to change the oil every 4k but I'm oil paranoid. Otherwise, I'd agree that my F56 with BMW's B46 engine is way more reliable than my 2002 R50 with the juuuuuuunk Chrysler Tritec engine.
P.S. Yes, my signature is wrong R56 instead of F56. Lol