Hello Everyone,

I'm new to this forum and this is my first post. I'm in the market for either an '05 or '06 MCS.

So far my search hasn't been so great. I've looked at a few MCS at or right below blue book from franchise dealerships and though they all come up with clean carfax and autocheck reports, about 3 out of 4 of these cars had front end damage and one can easily tell without a keen eye that this car has been hit.

I walked away from these guys, but it makes me wonder? The engine compartments of these cars are very tight, true for a lot of cars these days. I'm not sure how serious of an accident these cars got into, but i've had cars before that were involved in a front fender bender and I've had repairs that were almost impossible to tell the car was hit. Are the minis that fragile that they are hard to work on in the case of an accident?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

 

I'd say the biggest reason you can tell is the radiator surround is such a large peice that it is always replaced with any front end hit. They really arn't hard to fix if the frame rails don't get bent. Everything else just unbolts.

 

Looked at another 3 this week that were MINI-NEXT certified..and same thing again. 2 had front bumpers that seemed crooked or didn't quite align. Bolts to the subframe in front of the radiator (if I got that right) looked worn a bit. By looking at a few 1st gen MCS at work. The bumper and the fender doesn't quite line up the smoothest, but the ones i'm seeing at the dealerships, even BMW/MINI dealerships are quite obvious. *SIGH*

 

Also watch for overspray in the engine bay.

 

Sell you my 2003 S

 

i'm looking for an 05 or 06 MCS as well. looking for under 50k with sport package. i looked at a few and the lack of real estate under the mini trunk makes a good visual inspection rather difficult (from above at least). getting it up on a lift would be a good idea.

 

just picked my 06 up today based on add in Craigslist.org...a great resource.