I am interested in purchasing a second hand mini. I have found a decent Cooper S from 2004. Most that i have found in my price range have higer miles ( 60,000+ ). Anything specific I should look for? Are there certain problems specific to minis that I should know about. What are peoples thougts on how these cars age? The car is $14,500 and is very clean... A little gunshy to get into a car with 60,000 miles but I really want a mini.

 

look for the garanty and have it chek for trany noise. I had my trany change by the dealer for free bearing noise and the car had only 43.000klm but im very satisfy whit the work the dealer done

 

what was wrong with your trany and is this something that happens to minis? I don't think I want to have to replace a transmission ;|

 

No, what happened to MC2 is not common.

I would advise that you go out and drive a handful of Mini's before purchasing. This way you'll be able to compare them and you'll have a good idea if one of them has any issues.
There isn't anything traumatic that goes on with the 04s. I bought mine this spring with 27k on it and have had no complaints.
Just remember that there are A LOT of Minis' out there, so dont' jump on the first one you see... a better one will be by in a little while.

I would advise reading here for a few days to get a feel for issues. Most are very minor. A couple are Sticky's in the problems section (Mushrooming)
With that in mind remember that people come to forums to find solutions to problems, so sometimes it appears that there are many more issues than what you would expect.

 

Buy my Mini. Low miles, 2004, and some mods.

 

like someone else said, the '04s are pretty good compared to the earlier cars. what matters the most is probably how well the car was maintained and taken care of. better if it was a single-owner car. spirited driving style isn't necessarily bad, as long as it wasn't abused and the owner was mature (and honest) about it. reasonably regular oil change is a must pretty much for all engines. mushrooming is easy to check for and even if it has it, some people don't think it's a big deal. (it can be fixed, albeit via a rather primitive way) just make sure you can ascertain the maintenance history/habit from the owner. the dealer can also give you the service history, but you may have to pay. if you have access to some kind of a bmw/mini shop/mechanic, it'd be worth the $ to get it checked out. otherwise, $14.5k is decent for 60k miles, depending on features. there are quite a few used r53's out there, so look and drive lots

and fyi the current issue of mc2 has a used mini buying guide that might be helpful

 

I just looked at an 03 S with 32,000 miles. asking 16,000. Seems like a very clean car. Any differing problems with 03's compared to other year models.

This might be the one If I can get it down in price a little...