I recently purchased a trailer hitch, cargo platform and cargo box for my 2006 'S' convertible from MINI Do More and wanted to post about my experiences (some good, some bad).

First off, the hitch is extremely well-built and sturdy, and the installation was very straightforward. The only problems I had with the hitch itself were that MDM only included one extra fender trim clip rather than the two that the directions said would be included, and that the hitch didn't come with a hitch pin. I don't know if the hitch pin is supposed to be included and I just didn't get one, or if they don't include a pin at all, but it meant an unexpected trip to the hardware store to pick up a pin.

The cargo box was another matter, though. It's advertised as being a "12 cubic foot box", but its capacity is nowhere close to that. The maximum exterior dimensions are 37" X 21" X 20", which only works out to a little under 9 cubic feet. But the actual capacity of the box is even smaller than that, since the sides taper from the top to the bottom and some of the interior volume is taken up by reinforcing ribs. The label on the box itself (it's a Contico 1RG71, BTW) plainly states that the capacity is 50 gallons, which is only about 6.7 cubic feet - a far cry from the advertised 12 cubic feet. Brent from MINI Do More said that they would update their web page, but it's been six weeks and the description is still incorrect.

The cargo platform is also the wrong size. In the website description, it's listed as being 20" X 34" and weighing less than 20 pounds. The platform is actually 20" by 60" and weighs almost 40 pounds. So, the platform is over two feet wider than it's supposed to be. I guess that gives me some extra width to strap cargo to it, but since the trailer hitch only has a maximum tongue weight of 200 pounds, I wasn't happy to lose 20 pounds of capacity because of the extra weight of the platform. Plus, the extra weight/bulk is going to make it harder for one person to install/remove the cargo platform.
The platform also doesn't have the advertised holes for relocating the rear license plate.

Lastly, the hitch bar for the platform would *not* fit into the MDM receiver hitch. The bar is a 1-1/4" bar, and the receiver hitch is a 1-1/4" receiver, but both the cargo platform bar and the receiver hitch are powder-coated, and the extra thickness from the coating prevents the bar from going into the receiver, no matter how much force I used. Fortunately, grinding the powdercoat off of the cargo platform bar gave me enough clearance so that I didn't have to figure out how to remove the coating from the inside of the receiver hitch, which would have been much more difficult.

Everything's installed now and works, but I would have been up a creek if I hadn't had time to grind off the platform bar powdercoating, or if I actually needed the cargo box to hold as much as MDM claims it does. I think they're good products, but MDM needs to revise their web site descriptions to reflect the actual products they're providing.