How many of you have spent over $10k in repairs? Not upgrade or mods, just repairs? What year and model? What were the repairs? Did a MINI dealer repair it or a MINI specialist?

 

Jeez ... no where near that ... including buying the car !

 

Not including the car. Just in repairs.

 

I could see where you could accumulate that much easily if your getting up there in mileage,
Replacing a super charger, trans, and other could put you over 10k,

You could spend half that on a single repair, hence the popularity of extended warranties and many get rid of a new car after three years regardless.

 

I understand what you are saying.

I just want to see if anyone has spent that much on repairs.

 

no - maybe a couple of grand in repairs, including brakes, super charger, power steering, axles, and misc window gremlins.

Tires are by far the most expensive part, a few hundred dollars every few months.

I've spent more on mods than repairs, currently at over 293600 miles on an 03 s.

Nik

 

Good news xsmini. You must be a good mechanic. I bought a base 08 in June with 28k on it. It now has 42k and I'm retired. Seems like every excuse to drive it I have used! I've had zero problems so far and don't anticipate any. The warranty ran out in August and it doesn't bother me. The wife's 07 Cabrio is a different story. It also was low mileage when we got it in June. Also had 28k now 34k but we purchased the extended warranty and it has paid off. The difference in the cars is amazing. We love em both and will always have MINIs in the future.

 

Yes, I has a '02 R50 that was bought in Feb '11 with 38.8k miles and sold April '12 with 63k miles. I had the car in for 4 separate times within about 8 months and the total for all RO (repair orders) was ~$11k.

This was my 2nd MINI and I'm on my 3rd now, it didn't stop me as I should have known a 1st year car with lots of time on it was a possible recipe for disaster.

 

So in just over a year you spent 11K on repairs. Please tell us what they were as we are curious.

 

Knowing a little about Gen 1 cars form reading here I made sure the Power steering lines were good and the coolant reservoir overflow was replaced, but alas I had the following done...

Well all but one item was covered my my Easy Care "Total Care" extended warranty. In all total I had:

• Dragging rear DS brake caliper, blued the rotor (I had to pay for the rotor but Easy Care covered the pads, go figure, lol.) New Pads and Caliper
  
• Upon bleeding the new caliper, brake reservoir exploded...got a new one of those too.
  
• Motor mount too I think
  
• Radio head unit replaced (weird issue with certain station not coming in like every other car in town or on the lot).
  
• Spotty/weird rear defroster not all worked, rear window replaced
  
• Rough ride in rear occasionally (collapsed struts), rear struts and mount points changed
  
• Low speed fan resistor, new fan assembly,
  
• Leaky oil pan gasket
  
• Window regulator replaced
  
• Bad Tach display, replaced
  
• Blown midlands at 50k miles

For now this is all I can think of off the top of my head.


I will edit and add to as I recall more. It was a fun car compared to my current and past S auto ('09 and '10), but it came with come baggage.

 

Yetti I give you all the credit for sticking with it. Thats a lot of work. Lucky for you, you had the warranty.

 

$10,000?!
WOW.... don't think I have spent that much on upgrades!!
think beyond regular MX and mods, I have spent maybe $1000...maybe less since I bought the car....NEW.
1) Did have to replace the rear rotors due to corrosion when I should have been able to JUST do the pads....
2) Replaced the PS cooling fan...then later added the OEM duct as an upgrade..figured it would protect the fan from grit, extending its life...
3) Swapped the radiator cooling fan for an TYC unit from Rock-auto..been in for 4+ years...
4) Had a few front end bushing replaced due to wear.....
5) replaced the 3rd REAR brake light with a used unit from WAYMOTORWORKS.COM when the lense popped off...think it was overtightened by ME when I installed my 3rd brake light pulsar.....so MAYBE a fix, but IMO, USER ERROR!!

Wear and tear..brake pads....
KONI FSD's to replce OEM shocks/struts...
Filters, oil, coolant, tires, belts as needed due to miles, age and wear....
Then again...I don't wail on my car, and I usually drive it nicely...unless I am wringging it out a bit...

 

Geez. If I even start to approach $10k I think I'd be getting a new car.

I haven't spent any money out of pocket on repairs. Leaky thermostat replaced under factory warranty, just under the wire on that one. Had some stiff shifting that felt like it might be a bad 1st gear syncro (refused to shift into 1st until I shifted into 2nd and back.) and that got me a trans fluid flush at no cost. Seemed to fix it, 99% anyway.

Some maintenance and consumables (tires, brakes, oil, battery, inspection 1) and that's it. Knock on wood! I've only had the car two years... 30,000KM when I got the car, 60,000KM on it now.

However I'm about $5k deep in mods including labor.

 

If you add up the labor on what I had done under warranty, MINI spent more than what they charged me for the car on fixing it, I'd have to request a print out from them but I'm guessing between the transmission/differential/oil pan that would have gotten me at least halfway there, the rest was a long list of odds and ends (front seat, speedometer, O2 Sensors, expansion tanks, etc.).

Since leaving warranty, I've had to spend about 5-6k on mechanical repairs (power steering, map sensors oil coated, distributor corroded, valves carbon fouled, battery replacement, supercharger bypass valve failure, handful of thermostat gasket failures, bent S- lites).

Insurance companies covered bills of 5k and 7k for parts and labor on each of those other humanly damaged components (never had an ins claim before the Mini), and then there's the bill I never saw for the bodyshop work the dealer had done without contacting their insurance after they had a fender bender with my MINI while getting warranty work done so there's an unknown value to that as well.

I know as of 5 years ago I'd already passed the 5k in modifications club don't think I made the 10k group, and there's the standard maintenance costs of tires, supercharger oil, oil. So I haven't hit 10k yet, but this msrp 24k 05 has probably over 60k into it in 8 years 149k miles.

I've been very hesitant to put more money into it, and stopped modding a few years ago as a result of always fixing problems, and the last mod I did, I knew I could take the scangauge with me; ideally I'd like to retire it to a weekend only car and be able to go through the laundry list of minor items that still need repair/replacement (like the leatherette that's cracked means the seats need $$ of work, I need ANOTHER passenger side engine mount) and be able to put a few more modifications in to restore some of the fun factor (poly bushings in place of worn rubber ones) and finer details (window tinting). Worse than the $$ in repairs though, is the point of for years now having a sinking guilt every time I turn the key wondering what is going to break this time.

 

This is why we are MINIacs.

 

I would imagine the amount to repair for me would be half if I hadn't had the warranty. I could have changed my own struts and brake caliper, oil pan gasket. I would have left the radio as is or replace with aftermarket. I would have dealt with the rear defroster not being 100%, stuff like that. But since I had the tranny go I was happy to have the warranty for sure.

At the time I purchased the car, yes the total for all ROs was greater than the cost of the car.

When I bought my R55 and traded in my R56 in Aug of 2012 I made sure to get a CPO car as I wanted to keep this one for a bit longer.

 

$10 on pure repairs would be a pretty tatty car. We happen to have one in the shop which needs about that in mechanical and body fixes. We are trying to convince the owner scrap the car and start over with a good R53. So far, no luck.

 

Outside of maintenance items (oil change stuff, wipers, etc.) and minor mods, I've spent a little over $200 in repairs on my 06 MCS with about 120k miles. In the 9 months since I had my MINI, my thermostat needed replacing, I got the light trifecta, and my dipstick broke. Having come from a 14-year old Cherokee that was starting to show its age, I don't think that's too bad.

 

Yep.

Cheers,

Charlie