My sister is in the process of buying a Certified 2013 Baker Street manual transmission mini cooper. It's basically new, has about 11,000 miles. It was a service car for the dealership.

Mini recommends changing the oil every 10,000 miles, so she will get the first couple free under the 3 year/36k mile maintenance. But I thought that I read people are saying you should really change it every 5,000 miles. Which is it?

Mini recommends 89 octane fuel or higher. I know people with S models need to use as high as possible to minimize carbon buildup. Is that also a concern for justas or can they run fine on 89? For the most part our choices in CT are 87, 89, or 93. Does she also need to be concerned with only filling up at certain brands that are considered top tier and ethanol free?

Can you replace regular headlights with xenon headlights?

Anything else to look out for? It's not a done deal yet, so she can still back out.

Thanks in advance

 

Change the oil every 5000-7500 miles, use 89 octane.

While I'm relatively new to Mini ownership and maintenance, I've been hanging around on this forum for a while and I can safely say that these engines do tend to consume a little oil over time, and they are not capable of running 15k OCIs unchecked (which is what the in-vehicle computer will tell you to do).

Over 5k miles, the consumption is a minute amount. Over 10k+ miles, the amount is exponentially greater, and if left unchecked, will eventually cause much more critical issues such as vacuum pump failure and timing chain tensioner failure.

An easy solution to ensure trouble free motoring is to run 5000-7500 OCIs and check the oil at every other fill-up or so.

She's not buying a Honda, but she is buying a car with an ownership experience unlike any other.

 

Freckles, the octane recommendation has very little to do with reducing carbon build-up. It has much more to do with avoiding detonation, or pinging, which can be very harmful. When the system detects pinging, the ecu will dial back the timing to minimize it, so yeah, these engines can indeed use low-octane fuel. But this reduces power a bit and also has a tendency to cause things to run a bit hotter than normal. I'd suggest 91 octane. That's what I use in my car, a '13 Clubman S/manual. I'm as much a tightwad as anyone, but when you figure out the difference in the cost of tank of gas, 89 versus 91, it just isn't that big a deal, it seems to me.

Also, I've got the regular halogen lights in my car and had the xenon lights in the '05 MCS I had, as well as in an E39 BMW. The halogens work just fine. I have to question whether the xenons are worth the expense. But that's just me.

 

I find the Halogens in my girlfriend's R56 to be pretty great, honestly. They're just aimed a little low, currently; I need to raise them a bit and level them out.

 

Can you replace the colored turn signals with white on halogens?

Is there a film or something that you can get to make them look like the xenon black headlamp housing?

 

The oil-change interval appears to have changed in the last year; it seems to be much closer to 10K than 17K any more. MINI says you don't need oil changes more frequently than that. I'm not sure; it makes me feel better to get the oil changed every 5K miles or 6 months. (So I pay for every other one out of my own pocket.) It is more critical, I think, for the turbocharged "S" models than for our "Justas", but I still feel better about the 5K interval.

It is, as they say, "non-trivial" to change the regular headlights out for Xenons. There are kits, but I don't know how well they work.

The headlights can be "de-yolked" and blacked out; search for "Joey mod".

 

There are many post on changing the front yellow (ie egg) turn lens for white ones but no one has been able to just find the white replacement lens. To solve the issue, I purchased a used set of lights that had the white(clear) lens and replaced the egg yoke headlights on my Mini. One of the headlights I purchased was damaged in shipment and I was able to take the clear lens out of the damage headlight put in it the other light. Also, some people has just popped the egg yoke lens out and have no lens in the light. You see the bulb this way. In this case they replace the yellow bulb with one of those silver types that looks silver but blinks yellow.

As for halogen vs Zeons, just go to a local part store and buy a set of the GE upgrades bulbs.

As for the fuel, I use the 89 octane on my Mini non-S clubman and have not problem and average approx 35 mpg with automatic.