I wouldn't trust any year Mini with a CVT. Period. CVT's can be great if executed properly (like on my wife's Murano), but BMW gets a big fail for the CVT in the Mini.

 

BMW gets a big fail for a lot of things, and they don't seem to like comming clean... Not sure I'll ever buy another BMW product again. For me, the MINI Cooper was a relatively inexpensive way to get the "BMW bug" out of my system. While I still love the car, let's just say I'm glad I did it this way.