There is something that has made me wonder sine I got my MINI. Around the wheel arches on the body panel under the turn indicators there is a recessed lip that follows the angle of the hood line. Picture 1 shows the stock painted area I'm talking about. Picture 2 shows what it would look like if that recessed lip were painted black (wheel arch color). If painted black, the wheel arch gap while still being wide would line up accurately with the hood line.
Maybe a simple black pinstripe (mat black) would work as well as paint.

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An innovative idea!!! Since gaps seem to vary, it's really your call depending on your own MINI. If I were me I'd probably give it time and see if it really bothered me. The seam on most of the R56s I'm seeing now is irrelevant, certainly not a problem...and sometimes a fix is more conspicuous than leaving well enough alone. Your suggestion seems harmless enough though, especially if using pinstriping.

 

Great idea for those that are bothered by the new look.

 

One consideration is that the dark line caused by the gap would be much less pronounced for MINIs that are dark in color and especially noticable in a light colored MINI.

Any R56 painted their wheel arches yet? What does that do for the gap appearance?

 

That's clever!

 

Here's a pic from an earlier thread as well as the Hamann Mini - it would appear that on lighter colors the painted arches make the gap stand out even more

 

not a bad idea at all

 

BMW held some mini back with panel cap problems.

 

designer Mini has a fun idea that is easy to execute with an air brush. remember, prepare the surface (easy in this case) and use high quality paint

 

I will say this mod is probably for the more obsessive among us. The gap on mine looks perfectly appropriate. Sometimes a cure is worse than the problem...sometimes not. In the end...experiment away. Why not??

 

here is the hyper sport kit w/ painted arches for reference

 

I've noticed the hood (bonnet) is slightly mis-aligned on my mcs. (maybe a 1/4 inch or so) I took it to the dealer and they said it was adjustable. At the dealer I looked at a bunch of new MCS in astro black. Almost every one of them was slighly mis aligned. So I figured if they're all like that I should just let it be. Also fiddling with the hood and stuff may make it worse.

 

bringing back from the dead as this was happening to me. I thought the hood was out of whack as i did a cleaning and opened the hood to do some vacuuming on leafs. Once i closed the hood (no adjustments made at this time) the driver side had almost a 1/2 inch of gap. You ask how did i fix this... i adjusted the rubber spacers and nothing seemed to work... driving back to my house where i have my tools... obviously a few hard turns later out of anger i get home and the hood settled back to perfect. As a former honda tech, i presume many of these "gaps" are also contributed to body shifting. just my current speculation... well see if the gap of death returns.