Sorry kind of a vent but I'm also looking for confirmation. I really feel like I'm taking crazy pills. I mean big fat craaaaaaazzzzzzzzzyyyyyyyyy pills. Anyway, I want to replace the head on my cooper after FINALLY tracking down an ORIGINAL JCW R50 head. As my car is a 2006 Cooper R50 I have installed the JCW sound kit to make up for the incompatible parts from the original tuning kit (for cars <2004). Now the craziness.

I'm a canadian from Edmonton Alberta and since we don't have any indepenent MINI friendly shops I thought that the best place to get this done would be the MINI dealer. And I mean hey, they've got experience installing the old JCW kits on the Cooper S. I usually go to MINI Crowfoot in Calgary because I don't like MINI edmonton for numerous reasons but I thought hey, they should be able to at least give me a quote. The full R50 Cooper JCW tuning kit according to the install PDF is quoted at 5 hours. I know that this is just a guide but they've been fairly spot on from my experience with other parts. Quote from dealer to install just the cylinder head ................................... 12 freakin hours.

Um. This is not the supercharged car and I only want a quote for the installation of the cylinder head. No that's the quote in the computer and I confirmed this with our warranty advisor. Ok. Cya.

I proceed to call MINI Crowfoot my trusted Alberta MINI dealer.

I'll have to get the quote from our shop foreman but we just replaced a head gasket on a cooper yesterday and it took 9.2 hours. Ummm....yeah....if you could confirm with the shop foreman that would be great.

Shop foreman quote............................................. .....................14.8 freakin hours.

Um is it just me or is something seriously wrong here. I proceed to explain the quoted times for a complete install of the JCW cooper / JCW Cooper S tuning kits and how these quotes are higher for installing just a single part from those kits. Nope that's what the computer says.

Out of desperation I call MINI Richmond in Vancouver. They only deal with MINI's so they should understand what I'm talking about. Install quote............................................. .....................13.5 hours.

That's how long it takes. Umm. Has MINI recently updated the times. No. And the old install times for the Full JCW cooper S tuning kits were given as a package deal.

Wow. Anyway, thanks for letting me vent and I'm pretty sure that I'm not crazy in thinking that a head swap on a R50 Cooper from a licenced MINI mechanic should take no longer than 4 hours. Anybody? Anybody? Anybody? Anybody? Anybody? Anybody? Anybody? Anybody?
See. The crazy has started. Someone tell me I'm not crazy. Thanks.

 

welcome to the world of stealership

 

That's incredible. Inaccurate, but incredible... Well, I shouldn't be saying it's inaccurate because I know I would probably take that many hours doing it, but a professional (MINI licensed) mechanic shouldn't have that problem.

When I had my cylinder head + camshaft installed, it was a 3 hour job. Took the car to the mechanic (MINI certified), chilled in the area - cruised by the beach, had a soda, and got the call 3 hours later saying the car was ready. Drove it back home the same day.

Talk to some other independent mechanics in your area, I'm sure there has to be somebody MINI savvy who's willing to help you out. Should be around 3-4 hours, I reckon.

Best of luck,
Leo.

 

Yeah 3 to 4 hours is what I figured as well. I just can't beleive that BMW / MINI has changed the install time for this. If they could previously install not only a new cylinder head but the rest of the JCW kit / tune / badging in less time then they're quoting me what's the deal. Maybe I should pull some reverse psychology and say that I'm getting the full kit installed so I'll get the former quote. But who knows maybe that quote has changed for that as well. I'll try bothering some more people cause this just ain't right. I mean for the times quoted they would have to be standing there staring at it for 8 hours or so. An hour per bolt? Who knows. Does anyone more tech savy have a more educated guess on the length of time to replace a cylinder head on an R50 MINI Cooper? I'm assuming that it's slightly less time consuming than the Cooper S.

 

I got a quote recently from a local MINI shop who said 10 hours. Highway. Robbery. I was just looking at an old PDF for the R53 JCW kit install and it said 9 hours. That's for Supercharger, Cylinder Head and software flash. WTF!?

 

Sounds like you may need to make a road trip for the install.
A hotel and a few meals will probably be cheaper if you have the time to make the drive elsewhere for install..

 

Swapping a head on an r50 should be doable by most any independent mechanic...heck should cost you about $500 from what my mini guy says to do a headgasket on a S.... Can't imigine it would be harder on a Cooper!!
My guess is the mark-up is cause they are not making the mark-up on the head, so they are charging more on the labor to do some "revenue management".
Gotta figure that many shops charge a higher rate if you supply parts to make up for what they loose by not selling you the parts...being a dealer, I bet they don't have this set-up, so they just pad the labor amount.