I've had a lot of fun with my MINI. Truly the greatest car I've ever owned, and it will probably hold that title for years to come. But, I've decided I want to move from the suburbs (San Jose) up to the city (San Francisco) due to personal and professional reasons and I'd rather pass my car off to a fellow enthusiast than watch it sit on a street corner getting dinged, or paying $100+ a month for a garage (on top of the insurance, and muni pass I'll need).

The unfortunate side of it is my car is heavily modded. Nothing on the car is what I'd consider shoddy, I put a lot of care into the selection of the mods and daily drivability. However I know the realities of selling a modded car, and it's usually not pretty. What would you folks suggest? I'd LOVE to keep the mods on the car, and sell it to a buyer as excited about motoring as myself (long as he keeps them on the car!). I don't even care if I have to sell it at or slightly below market.

One last call for suggestions, re: the mods. There's one mod I need to fix before selling, out of courtesy for the new owner. My exhaust is fairly heavily modded. I've got an OBX header, connected to a catless exhaust, which goes to a one-ball'ed muffler. Now, this is definitely not smog legal. My question is, should I just search around or go to a junk yard and pick up a stock cat or should I replace this with a high performance cat? I'd like to minimize the costs of fixing the car up for sale as much as I can, but I'd hate to sell it to an enthusiast with a nice header/one ball and a restrictive stock cat but I'm not sure what else my options would be.

 

Wow, I think I've met you twice (from Mavs), and you seem like a really cool guy. Sorry to hear you letting go of your Mini, but I can understand the practicality of it.

For your cat question, I'm going to assume that there's quite a cost gap between the 2 options. I'd go with the inexpensive option (assuming stock cat) that will make it smog legal. No use paying to mod to a performance high flow cat if it wouldn't give you much in return. An enthusiast would probably opt for your catless setup, or choose their own if they were worried about smog.

OR

You can just be up front with any potential buyer, and give them the option. Offer to get a stock cat and install it for them to pass smog, or if they want a high-flow, they can purchase, and you can install it for them. Or split the costs, or whatever.

Good luck.

 

Heya Kreative, I do remember you from a couple of the runs. It's been awhile since I've had the time to get out of the house and motor :(. After exploring my options and asking around, it appears I'll need to get the car smogged before I sell it, which basically requires me to put at cat on. It also sounds like the price for a high flow cat is low (on the order of $60-$100) on summit's website so either way I'll have to eat the cost of labor to install it, which is where the real cost is. Now I just need to find a shop that does good work on MINIs and doesn't mind working on non-carb parts.

 

Good luck with the sale. Hopefully, when the time comes, you'll get a Mini again.

 

check out Sounds Of Speed Performance. I had them build me a custom exhaust as well as weld a cat on a header. They do really good work and are great guys. Carefull with the header and smog, even if you put a cat on it, the header itself is not C.A.R.B. approved and can cause the car to fail to visual inspection.

 

Aye, at this point there's nothing I could do about visual. What I don't get though is in what circumstances do you have to pass both a visual AND tailpipe? Do you just have to go to the right smog shop to only have to do a tailpipe so you don't have to worry about a visual?

 

the visual and tailpipe test should be done every time. Its just weather the place actually does the visual and if they know what they are looking at.