I love my 2005 Mini Cooper S, it only has 42,000 miles on it but I wonder what I will purchase when it wears out, I haven't found any other car with such low miles that is as fun. What are your thoughts? Are you re-building or buying something different to maintain a similar fun super small fast car?

 

My '05 S is at 206,000 km and I plan on keeping it until I crash it. It's stored during winter, so it's still in good conditions despite its 15 years. I'll definitely refresh the bottom end once I pull the engine out to fix/upgrade things engine wise. I do have a project e30 (fully stripped out to get the body fixed once I dive into that), so that would probably replace the S in term of summer/track car if something bad happens.

 

At only 42,000 miles, you have some time left.

Nik

 

You fix the things that break.... And you upgrade them when you do!

 

+1

 

From my experience,

you'll never find another low mileage R53 that you can grow old with and know the history of.

Take care of it, upgrade/repair as you go. Keep an eye on rust and it'll last a life time (if you want it to). "they dont make them like they use to"....

R55 JCW owner here... I'd LOVE a clean R53 JCW to park next to mine (this from a Mustang/AMG/Porsche guy (in that order) for what its worth.

 

Wish mine only had 42k but at 206k it's still nicer than most I see with 1/4 the miles and has been problem free since owning it so lol maybe it's just broken in because it's far from broke..
at 42k I think you'd have MANY good years to come with it.

 

210,000 on my r50

150k on the chassis on my new jcw r53 with 0miles on it, i can’t wait to drive it

 

If you do your own labor, you fix it. If you have to pay for labor, you get rid of it.

 

As is proper with any BMW.

 

Odd question for a car with 42,000 miles.

For my daily driven '03 R53 with 155,000 miles, the question never crosses my mind. I only think about when I'm going to repair the next thing on my list or "if X breaks, what am I going to do?"

 

Fixed that for you.

 

Upgrade the part, either to 05/06 spec or JCW.....