Well, since we drive MINIs and not Mustangs or Civics, there's a limited number of companies selling parts for our cars.

On the plus side, most of them are discussed quite often here on NAM, and many of them can be found in the site's vendor directory, so I would suggest that as a good place to start. The only one that I recommend against even considering is Palo Uber (I'm not alone, and you can do a search to find out why).

 

Bump with the exception of the Palo Uber comment. I suggest you decide what mods you want, research all vendors that supply same and then make your decision based on your research and preference. If Palo Uber is such a bad vendor, then what is that organizaton doing on Nam? I have complaints about other vendors but those are MY problems, I kow others that have dealt with the vendors I have had problems with and had no problems - same with Palo Uber.

 

I won't get into a re-hash of the whole Palo Uber saga, since it's been done to death in other threads, but I had to address your comment.

A vendor's presence on NAM is *in no way* an endorsement of their product or service. The long-standing policy regarding vendors on NAM is that if your product or service is at least tangentially related to MINIs (and isn't outright illegal), and you pay the vendor fee, you can be a vendor here. Nothing more, nothing less.

 

i've done business with two aftermarket vendors so far. both have been very friendly & superb with communication (especially when it comes to answering all of my questions). as well as product quality & shipping methods.

for my Third Brake Light PULSAR (GEN 2) & Glovebox Tidy, i went with GoMiniGo.
for my R56 Passenger Visor Kit, i went with Minspeed.

 

I've ordered from most of the online outfits (Morristown Mini, Pelican Parts, Moss Motors, Minimania, Outmotoring, LightInSight, M7, etcetera) and have had no problems. I ordered the parts and received them in a reasonable amount of time, and the parts were as described. Since I didn't have any questions for them or problems with my orders, I didn't get a chance to test out their customer service, but I've got no reason to believe I would have had any problems.

There have been some real positive standouts for me, though:

Aesthetic Creations (a big custom vinyl job on my MINI). Mike was great throughout the design process, and he even got my job done a little early so that I could stop by his place in the middle of a 3,000 mile cross-country road trip to have him install the vinyl (at 10 PM, when the temperature was still well over 100 °F).

Doug Whalen is providing a great product and service with his custom-engraved shift *****. Basically, he'll engrave any design you want on his ***** for about $20 more than the price of his standard ****. (And since I had him make up two ***** at the same time, he didn't even charge the custom fee for the second ****.) Plus, I got the ***** in the mail about three days after sending him the graphics files.

Detailer's Paradise is great as well. Even though none of their products are MINI-specific, Heather is a *huge* presence here on NAM, constantly answering questions and providing recommendations/tips/techniques/encouragement.

The only negative experience I've had with a NAM vendor has been with the vinyl graphics I ordered from MightyStripes for my wife's MINI. The thread is here, but basically, their website pictures were misleading, and the kit was a lot more "do-it-yourself" than I would expect for the price. (Accent stripes weren't pre-placed on the same backing sheet as the main stripes so they have to be placed and aligned manually, the "white" stars on the main stripes were really just star-shaped cutouts in the vinyl, so the stars end up being body-colour instead of white, etcetera).

 

I bought my rims/tires off edgeracing.com

 

Gotta say +1000 on Doug Whalen. Can't say enough about how cool that guy is, and how rediculously awesome his products are.

I also really like outmotoring.com

Aaron and his wife (I forget her name) are excellent peeps, and the customer service/selection/quality/speed of service are very, very good.

 

Im certainly not an expert, but tire rack has a good site for seeing wheels on a car. Its nice because you can pick make, model, year, and color and see what a particular wheel would look like on it. Saves some photoshop time. Of course they dont carry all brands and many times you can get better deals elsewhere but its still a good tool in my opinion.