I live in Indianapolis and have always liked Mini's. I've been looking for something fairly cheap, as I'm trying to get out of a higher payment and came across this car. I drove it today & it seemed to run great. Leather & interior are in excellent shape. With that being said, I'm not a mechanic, nor do I know much about cars, so I guess that's not saying much. Carfax says it's a one owner car.

I thought I'd check this forum to see what advice (if any) the Mini community has.

2003 Mini Cooper Base
Indi Blue
140,605 miles
$7.772

Here is a link to the website:
http://www.tomwood.com/used-inventor...eHistory=true#

I've never bought a car with this many miles on it & wondered how Minis wear.
Any potential problem areas I should have looked at before purchasing?

Any advice is greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

 

i don't know of anything to watch for but if you get it and wanna go run around in the country, i'm in broadripple.

also check out minicci.org.
people may know stuff there too.

 

Obviously check the front strut towers for mushrooming, and that the upper strut mounts arn't split. Also be ready at 140k, the car prob needs front control arm bushings.

But the big thing is has the clutch or trans been replaced? If not it's due for one or the other, those early midlands give up pretty easy. Shoot me a pm and I can hook you up with a friend at the dealer that can check the VIN to see if they have done any big repairs.

WAY

 

Needless to say Way has worked on a lot of MINIs, I would definitely shoot him a PM and get his friend's info.

I only have 55,460 miles on my '06, and she's doing really well. The wild card here is did they do routine preventative maintenance on this MINI. Did they give you any maintenance logs? You can also get the dealer's maintenance info from MINI USA. It will only tell you what the dealer did, or any thing the owner did (if he input that).

I would definitely look at the brake fluid; if it looks like coffee I would guess that the maintenance done by the owner was very basic (if any). If the brake fluid is pretty clean it could indicate the owner was pretty detailed in his maintenance or the dealership that the MINI is at at least did some work on it.

Best of luck.

 

I bought a used '02 and inquired with the Mini dealership to find out what had been done to it. They (I tried Mini USA & a couple dealerships) all told me that their policy is not to disclose any maintenance history unless you are the original owner.

If you can find a dealership willing to disclose this info I would love to know who.