It's been a long long while since I've been on here! So hello again, MINI friends.

I have a 2006 MCS Convertible in pepper white that I may be looking to trade (or sell to buy) for an R53. My car is modified at the moment, but will convert back to mostly stock (I'll probably end up leaving the ALTA 15% pulley in there).

For those of you who have experience in trading for or buying an R53, what tips can you offer me? I am pretty set on making my car a good trade (no collisions, all receipts of any work done to the car, etc). So I suppose I would like to know what I should be wary of when the time comes to trade or buy (thinking July).

Another question to address is what year of R53 (NA or S) to look for that has the better gear ratios?

 

Will this be through a private party trade or a dealer trade? Best years for the gear ratios that people recommend would be 2005-2006 R53. You're a MINI person so I'm sure you know what common problem areas to look out for when buying as well. I'd just ask about maintenance history and check the carfax, etc. I'd do some research around the LB area on cars.com, truecar.com, auto trader, etc. to see what they're going for. Same for what your car is going for. See if doing a straight trade will be feasible or even to get an idea of what their used market value is here. It sometimes varies depending on location.

 

Well main thing, all R53 are S cars, the code R53 means hardtop supercharged an NA car would be an R50, and the general concensus seems to be that the 05-06 cars are the best put together of the first generation of new mini. I know my 02 has had its fair share of rattles since I got it.

A good indication on how it's been treated will be to look at the frintersection strut towers and see if and how bad they have mushroomed. If that's bad the car has more than likely been dogged on.

 

Yes, I would check the mushrooming :

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...shrooming.html





and i would do a complete walk around and have it up on a lift to inspect.