'02 Cooper, low on coolant. Is it best to just buy the coolant from a dealer, or is there better prices on the net? In the Atlanta area if there are any shops local.

 

Prestone makes good antifreeze, along with a lot of others, and it's available almost anywhere.

 

Zerex G-05 should work fine as well.

 

thanks, but can all of these be mixed with the oem blue coolant? I know in my VW I have to use the VW stuff, if i mix it, it starts to gel.

 

I've mixed Prestone all makes all models with oem coolant and it was ok. G-05 should be even better. BMW coolant is G-48. I think you should be able to get G-48 at SAAB dealers for a lot cheaper than MINI sells it for.

 

thanks for your helpful info...

 

Mixing the coolant should be no problem. Some of the coolants even say on the bottle, "mixes with everything", or something like that.

 

Yeah, but sometimes you gotta be careful. If you mix any form of green AF with GM's DeCool crap, it turns to acid. Good for eating up gaskets really quickly.
Edit: I only paid about $20 for a gallon of full strength (2 gallons mixed) AF from a local Beemer dealer. Compare that to about $11-12 for Prestone at a retail store. Not bad, IMO. And, be sure to add a bottle of Redline Water Wetter.

 

And the coolant should be phosphate free. Using coolant with phosphates causes all sorts of issues with BMW motors. I doubt the Mini would be much different.

 

when i bought mine 02 MCS, my motoring advisor said i could use just any 50/50 antifreez... since then, ive been using prestone 50/50

 

Yep, no reason to use anything else.