It's a good dilemma to have I think. 7 months ago, we'd never owned or driven a Mini in our life, but I always had been a fan of their looks. Back in June we decided it was time to replace my wife's ride. We quickly both settled on a Mini. For our price range and other reasons, we searched out and found a 2005 MCS in purple haze. It was rather high miles and needed a couple small things, but I felt we got a really good deal on it.

Fast forward 6 months and we were "arguing" about who was going to drive the Mini that day, so we decided to find another. We decided my wife would "keep" the first one and I'd find the next one for me. After much searching, I found an electric blue metallic/black top 2004 MCS with 81k miles that fit my search criteria. Well, Thursday, I flew down to Texas and drove it back 830 miles home to give it a good shake down run. It passed.

Now the dilemma. For "my driver", I'd like to do a couple simple mods, SC pulley, cold air intake, and some suspension mods. Basically add a little excitement and not punish the reliability too much. End goal is a fun little daily driver and maybe an occasional Autocross or HPDE event. The new car has significantly less miles and is much "tighter" because of it in terms of rattles and squeaks, etc... Also having test drove a couple stock 04 to 06 MCS's during the past 7 months I've noticed none of the cars pull like our '05 MCS. Maybe it's just because I've not driven any of them like I stole'em like I have with the '05.

So now I'm having second thoughts. Should I do what I'm thinking with the '05 with significantly more mileage on it, or do it with the much cleaner '04 with half the mileage. The only modification that is obvious on the '05 is a previous owner installed a Vibra-technics right hand engine mount. But the way it pulls makes me wonder if something else has been done, like maybe a pulley. Whichever one is deemed my wife's driver will see considerably less mileage, as she works from home.

So what would you do?

 

Well your probably feeling the gearing in the 05 vs your 04, but it's very likely it has a pulley pop the hood and take a look. Stock look like this

 

Hadn't thought there would be a difference between '04 to '06, so I hadn't considered that. I see the '05 is a June build date so the earlier ratio set. I also saw one reference that said there was a different final drive axle ratio as well. I went out and snuck a look at the pulley in the rain and it looks factory.

 

If it's an 05 then it has the facelift gear ratios which makes it a bit quicker.

 

Yes it's an '05, but what I was saying is it felt quicker than some other '05's and the lone '06 that I had driven while searching......and the '04 we ultimately ended up with. Again, it could be just the way I drive our own car versus something I'm test driving with the car owner in the passenger seat.

 

I understand, could be.

 

If you haven't already done so, try resetting the ECU using these instructions:

Resetting your Mini's ECU

The ECU is adaptive to driving styles and as such, if babied, will feel sluggish sometimes. This is a cheap "mod" that you may get something out of. I did.

 

Hmmm, interesting, I'll give that a try.