Hopefully I'm in the right section for this post...but I've owned my R53 for about a month an a half now and keep finding little things on it that tell me the owner MUST have been a member here at one time. I believe the guy I bought it from knew squat about the car and sold it listing "too many mods to list" in his ad. He couldn't really name any of them though. He did tell me it had a "performance clutch" done last summer and that the car seemed really fast. It was in good shape and the price was reasonable, so I bought it.

First indicator that the previous owner was at least a casual enthusiast were the BSH and Detroit Tuned stickers on the moonroof. Upon inspection, I noticed a few more things:

- Aftermarket blower pulley (no idea what brand or % reduction)
- When I went to install the Alta intake I bought, I saw that the stock airbox had been cut (but taped up when turned back to stock).
- Uniball exhaust mod (though it was done somewhat poorly)
- Brake pad sensors have been removed
- Aluminum coolant reservoir
- Strut tower reinforcements/corrected mushrooming
- Apparent coding (windows down w/key, etc)
- OEM Shifter seems to have a shorter throw (is that a thing on these cars?)
- Detroit Tuned Bypass Valve
- Solid motor and trans mounts

So yeah, I think these point to a previous owner who was a Mini enthusiast or at least active on the forums as I see many of these things being discussed. I asked the guy I bought the car from if he had any info on the previous owner and he said no, so I'm guessing he bought it from a dealership.

The car's a Dark Silver '04 and I bought it in Henderson, NV, so that probably narrows it down...like...a little.

Are there any other things I should be on the lookout for? I'm currently going through the standard repairs/maintenance that you'd expect for a car with about 135K miles. AC compressor went out the first week, axles need replacing (especially after lowering the car), and other little things. Overall a really solid car that's a lot of fun to drive though.

Sorry for the rambling post, but I figure maybe someone will see it and go "hey, that was my car at one point." You never know.

 

Post some pics as someone may know it. We have this happen all the time with our customer cars when they show up on used car lots.

 

Here's a shot of how it looked when I bought it back in May:


Here it is now: