if you kept your mini after the 4 yr warranty and it had less than 50k miles, list the repairs and cost per yr/ miles if you know. ( it would be helpful to know forced induction or not). this might be helpful for owners to decide the value of not in extended warranties. does not apply to routine maintenance.

 

I bought my 2003 base Cooper in June of 2010 with just under 45k miles on the odometer.

I've had it for 18 months and have put 38k miles on it (now at 83k mi)

Excluding oil changes, new tires and battery, I've spent in the neighborhood of $4,000 in repairs. I'm about to schedule it for a new clutch and flywheel (the throw-out bearing didn't have enough grease in it and has been rattling for nearly 10k miles now), so by the time it's up to, say, 85,000 miles, I' will have spent over six thousand dollars in repair work.

That figures out to be $0.15/mile for the miles I've put on it.


This has included:
New radiator (plus thermostat and gaskets while he was in there.)
Power steering hoses
front control arm bushings
front strut mounts
front struts
trans-axle seals and axle boots
updated oil filter cover
new oil pressure sensor
new oil filter housing (the little plastic check-valve broke--$400, thank you very much)
new motor and transmission mounts (all of them)

All done with OEM parts by an independent Mini specialist.

It's a good thing it's cute.

 

Not sure why you only want to know for those with warranties expiring due to time, but for mine which expired due to mileage, the cost for repairs has been $0.

 

[
It's a good thing it's cute.[/QUOTE]

You have no idea how many times I've heard that exact same thing !!

 

Beyond tires, oil, gas and my mods, i have spent money on a radiator fan and a ps fan...that and a battery...not bad for an '05 s....also added some koni struts, more as an upgrade than a replacement...another mini driver at the shop got the oem ones i took out, and for the price (free) they were a hige upgrade....
My inspections have neen done at a non dealer...and that has likely save me 50% on the labor .
I would say that mini's vary greatly...
Both in build quality, and their history....
Lets face it, some cars have neen abused, and passed on to an unsuspecting person who got it cause it was cute..

And they didn't look too closesly...
The biggest $$ factor is finding a competant mechanic...
Mini's have a steep learning curve....and even some dealers are iffy....

 

so far it seems the gen 2's have been pretty good and the gen 1's would be expected to have greater maintenance costs just secondary to age and mileage. feed back as to little problems is good as we all know most times only the bad gets reported and that leads to false impressions.

 

Biggest issue like others have said is to find a decent shop for repairs and maintenance outside of warranty. BMW/MINI are just way too expensive to repair in house due to labour costs. Whenever possible buy your parts from non-dealership sources too.

 

That can get expensive too. The guy i go to takes a lot of care which takes time which costs money. he works exclusively on German cars and keeps a very high standard.

 

Since my warranty expired 2 years ago, I've paid for 3 oil changes and a set of PIAA wiper blades, and a new set of tires. That's it for maintenance. Nothing has gone wrong since. However, just before warranty expired, I did have MINI go through my car and check everything. That fit in well with Inspection 2.

This forum has everybody in paranoia mode.

 

That's because you always hear from people who complain when stuff breaks, and the people who have no problems have no reason to go around yelling about that

 

I have 54K and right after my warranty expired I had the clutch and rear seal replaced but got the dealer to cover cost. Also replaced my control arm bushings $500, Thermostat, Wheel speed sensor this alone at the dealer would have been close to $1K but spent less than that by doing some of the work myself. My DSC light just came back on....going to leave it for now. I plan on selling it in the near future. For what it is the MINI is expensive to maintain.

 

I heard a quote earlier today the "It's not paranoia if they are actually out to get you"; which is to say fantasy/delusion is a necessary part of paranoia.

The reason it may look to you like "this forum has everybody in paranoia mode" is because Minis break more often than most other cars, and when they do,they are considerably more expensive to fix. I'm happy you got a good one, others have too.

And as I look around this forum, I don't see all that many people complaining, what i do see is a lot of people asking about problems they are having with their Minis or reporting what they have fixed/spent (like I did earlier in this thread)

No one buys a Mini because they are economical. Or if they do many find, when they have to pay $2k for a clutch before it even hits 100k miles, that they are expensive vehicles to own. There's too much evidence of this to say people are making it up. And as I said, not that many are complaining. Including the purchase price ($10k) in the 18 months (and ~40k miles) I've owned my car, I'm now up near the cost of a brand new car (about $17k) and am driving a nine year-old Mini. This is a reality; not a complaint. I love my Mini.

Are you sure you're not confusing problem reporting with complaining and yelling?

Besides, Minis give folks a lot to complain abut. People are not making the problems up in their minds. Compare NAM to other forums such as for the Prius, or Honda Hookups and you'll see that those cars don't give much in the way of problems for people to discuss.

Again, we're not making this stuff up. These cars are neither reliable not economical; their charms are other than those qualities.

I'm happy for folks who happened to get one of the good ones. But your reliable Mini does not bring down my cost of ownership.

Talk to someone who works on them every week. The fantasy is in thinking that, as a brand, they are reliable and well-built.

 

Yikes . Obviously, you're someone with either a very poor history or just have a negative view. I'm not planning on driving Hobbes very hard so that may contribute to a hopefully less trouble free experience (time will tell). From what I've read elsewhere and what my personal friends have told me who've owned them for years, they have not been significantly more or less reliable than other vehicles.

 

I'm very interested in the topic of this thread as my 2nd Generation Mini is quickly approaching the end of the warranty with 43k miles on the clock. I use it as a daily driver and my commute is about sixty miles per day.
Unfortunately, comparing the 1st Generation to 2nd Generation Mini's are like apples and oranges.
My Mini/Peugeot turbocharged engine is very different than a Chrysler supercharged engine. Yes, they are both the Mini brand with high priced parts and labor, but the reliability could be considerably different.
It would be more helpful if there were a thread like this for each Generation since you are getting differing opinions when talking about very different cars.

At the very least, it would be helpful if you are able to list year of your Mini when posting. Thanks

 

That doesn't sound too bad actually, at fifteen cents per mile. Something tells me that 40,000 miles in a year and a half is more than these cars (and I'm sure many other passenger vehicles) are designed to handle. Maybe if you didn't drive it so much it would last longer? I mean, based on industry estimates at 15k/yr you're talking nearly three years of use in half that time. I'd expect things to break at that pace.

+1 here.

I've had mine 17 months and put about 20,000 miles on it; fortunately it hasn't "needed" anything. Besides the leaky/empty motor mount that needs to be replaced, I had two ~$100 oil changes and replaced the serpentine belt ($20 for the belt, $70 for the tool).

My 88 Silverado needed a top end, two transmissions and a rear end in the first 3 years and 50k miles I owned it. It seems to me that repair costs of used cars depend more on the Driver/owner than the brand of car.

 

I agree 15 cents a mile isn't too bad above and beyond routine costs. (not sure what those add up to all together)

However, I don't quite understand how you connect frequent use with wear rates. Don't parts generally wear the same per mile whether those miles are driven in a week or in a month? What is it about frequent use that causes things to wear more quickly mile-for-mile? (and no, I don't drive it too hard--it's just an R50-if I wanted to go like speed racer, I would have bought an "S".)

I actually suspect some of the work I've had to do is b/c the car was not driven enough. in its first seven years of life. It had one owner in Miami. 45k miles in seven years may be too little to keep everything properly exercised. --I also have no way of knowing if the car was sitting for a long time. This could be why the radiator came un-bonded or the power steering hoses developed leaks (dried out) same with the rubber strut mounts, throw out bearing, CA bushings, etc. They all could have dried up from lack of use.

It;s my understanding that cars do best when driven. No doubt I burn through miles quickly, but they are mostly 50 mph through nice winding rural roads. --not much traffic round here. Rural New England is not like your part of Northern California; everything 'round here is a 45 minute drive each way with one or two stop signs en route. --everyone around here puts over 20k/year on their cars--you kind a haf to if you're going to work and shop, etc. ---Imagine if you had to drive to Santa Cruz for everything.

That's not obvious to me. Do you mean a personal history of being poor? --as in not much money?

And I'm sorry you project an assumption of negative view on my reporting. I'm not angry or discouraged, just informed. Problems require research and the Mini world is full of people who have dealt with these cars' issues before I came along. (and many of them actually ARE angry)

Is Hobbes your first Mini BTW? B/C if you just got your first Mini (a 2012) then you're not yet qualified to have an opinion on these matters.

Anyway, I wish you good luck with your car and that it's a long time before you have to search these forums for the mystery oil loss that has been becoming more widely reported on the recent models.

in the mean time, I hope you love your as much as I love mine! These things are just too much fun!

 

I guess I must be a bit cheap(thrifty) but I think $0.15 is quite excessive considering it does not include oil changes, new battery or tires. Let me put a little perspective on this. My other car is a 1996 Ford Explorer that I bought new in '96. I expect to turn 170k miles on it in the next week or two. The Explorer came with 3yr/36k miles warranty, so I was only responsible for 134k miles of expenses. 134k @ $0.15 per mile means I would have spent $21,100 in repairs since I owned the car. Remember this does not include fuel, insurance, tires, battery, depreciation, or licensing.
Now, you're correct this is an old Ford, not a Mini. But I saw a post earlier on NAM from someone who has a '07 Mini with 160k on the clock with minimal repairs, so this could be a Mini also.

One last thought, I am debating purchasing an extended warranty since I now have 43k miles on my Mini. So if I put 100k miles on my Mini, the additional 50k miles without the warranty would cost $7,500. I better run right down to the Mini dealer and buy the warranty tomorrow before they read this post!
Just my perspective.

 

No, I'm just saying that the most vocal are the ones who have problems to complain about. So when you look at car forums most of the posts you will see are people saying _____ broke whats the deal

 

There are several issues to consider here.
1) I think these cars are generally driven harder than most other cars. The handling and cornering of MINI's almost begs you to drive them harder as compared to a Pruis, for example, which begs you to drive it slowly and easily. This would result in a higher than normal number of issues.
2) These cars are expensive to repair and maintain. The high BMW-like parts costs and hourly labor charges are inconsistent with the relatively low price of the car. Yes, I know you can easily get a JCW over $40,000, but the price of a base MC is just $20,200 and a base S is $23,800. Parts and labor charges for cars in this price range are usually lower than they are for MINI's.
3) The issues we hear about on NAM are not just whining and complaining. How many posts do we see that talk about the same issues over and over (early fuel pump failures, leaking thermostat housings, early clutch failures, mysteriously disappearing oil). Repeated postings about the same issues is indicative of a real issue rather than just people who like to complain.
4) Finally the average to less than average reliability of MINI's (particularly S models) has been well documented by independent surveys that are more credible than the anecdotal evidence we see here.

All this is why I decided to lease my MINI after always buying every car I've had over many decades of car ownership. I'm very comfortable with this deciision because it allows me to read all the "issues" threads without becoming paranoid. I will take excellent care of it while I have it because that's what I do, but whatever problems surface after my 45K miles are up will be issues that someone else will have to deal with. And, BTW, I absolutely love this car! I'm just being real here.

 

Yes and no; your tires, hubs, wheels and everything else are going to be hotter after driving 9 straight hours than 15 minutes. This could wear or fatigue parts more quickly, and/or affect parts that are lubricated differently, as sitting tends to do when cars are parked for long periods. Also, if you are accelerating the use, you accelerate the maintenance so the costs are not spread over time, and seem larger. I think this is kind of like taxi cabs and police cars; they get used a lot, so they wear out faster.


I think this has some truth to it as well. I see all kinds of mini's on the road, but I don't see NAM or M_A badges or stickers on them...just like not every Honda civic owner is on jdmhotrods.com, not every mini driver is here.

I'm with you up to here. I think you're on to something.

Sure. And on fullsizechevy or gmtrucks I read about bad transmissions, blown differentials and short circuits in brake and drl circuits. Every car has issues, some more than others, true but I don't see many reports of mini cooper or BMW recalls on the news.

I haven't seen many independent sources telling me that mini's are poorly manufactured and have higher rates of failure than average cars. I hear terrible things about old pinto's, fiero's, Yugo's, Hyundai and Kia, but I'm sure there are some good specimens of those cars as well.
Edmunds doesn't have anything particularly nasty to say about mini...http://www.edmunds.com/mini/cooper/

Do you have some links to show their below average reliability that we could peruse? I'd like to know before I dump more money into modifying my car...

 

I only pay for parts. We do 95% of work ourselves: between my boyfriend and I. The only thing I might not be able to do is some asinine electrical job. But engines, trannys, exhaust, suspension, clutches, etc...no problem!

The biggest cost is obviously labor.

 

good for you!!!

 

I believe the source for the MINI reliability statistics is Consumer Reports. It has given much higher scores for the Justa than the S models. The scores are derived from questionnaires that are sent out to subscription holders.

I tend to view these with some skepticism though. Since every car I have ever owned that has done well in their surveys has been a piece of junk, (Toyotas and Hondas), while my MINI has been stellar.

That being said, european cars in general are more expensive to repair than many others, and I dont think it matters if you spend $30K or $90K on the car.

 

Consumer Reports=skewed...
Remember the Chevy Prism/Corolla twins? Built on the same assembly line with the same parts, (save badging and styling) Yet the Prism received lower scores overall.

 

Here are a few. The last one allows you to look up JD Power reliability ratings by model year. Having said all this, I'm not recommending that you don't buy a MINI. There is A LOT of positive things to be said for this car - it's fun, sporty, nimble, and comes complete with a whole lifestyle (MINI clubs, events, etc.) if you choose to get involved. I love my MINI, but I'm also open to the idea that it might not be the most reliable car on the road.

http://tinyurl.com/7zvn8xd

http://tinyurl.com/7g3afju

http://tinyurl.com/7qy7uk9