Hello fellow NAM'ers:

I have some serious interest in two cars (both chili red).

Car A: Lower price mileage in the 71,000 but has no heated seats. Preventative maintenance not done on mushrooming of the towers.
Car B: Looks like a craven speed (I could be wrong and you can correct me) re-inforcement is in place. But seats like kinda odd (perforated ?? leather) and also red stitching on the door panel.

I need your input on car A: Is the tower mushroomed/mushrooming already. If so what is the approximate price to fix it (with parts and labor) ? See pic 1 and 2
I need input on car B: Does the mushrooming fix seem okay at least just based on pic 3? And have you ever seen this leather seat or the red stitching see pic 4 and 5

Thx in advance for your inout.

 

pics attached

 

pic 3

 

pic 4 and 5

 

 

I could be wrong but I just don't see any mushrooming in your pics.

 

 

 

Thats what I thought too .. there is some mushrooming. Thank you. Have you ever seen perforated leather seats ?? Car # B

 

A piece of 2x4 and a BFH will fix that small amount of mushrooming. Vids on youtube to show the process. Then fit the Cravenspeed Strut Tower Defenders to help prevent it from happening again.

 

Yes, a little mushroomed, the passenger side is usually worse as you tend to dodge more potholes on the driver side.
Those seats i think were recovers, i dont remember the perforated, back the day MINI dealerships liked to do one off seat colors and designs for customers.

 

This video will walk you through the strut tower remedy. One other thing to take care of is replacing the coolant expansion tank. The plastic seam is a failure waiting to happen. Stainless is the way to go, available on ebay.

 

The one at the Porsche dealership definitely has recovered seats. And the first one definitely has mushrooming strut towers . . but as others have mentioned, an easy fix

 

Thank you .. too many unknowns on the local Seattle CL car including the mushrooming but guess what it sold for $6800 after I paid for the inspection as I had some pause.

Anyways I want to personally thank the crew for your replies.

The Porsche dealership wants $9500 for their 06 R53 (non JCW). I would rather buy one from a private party/enthusiast with known history at that price. My search for a top tier R53 continues .. If anyone has a west coast R53 (shipping is so expensive these days) that they are contemplating to sell (pepper white/Chili Red) please drop me a note on eithersidegi@gmail.com. Thank you all

 

 

If you're limited to white or red, I don't have any suggestions. If you'd consider blue, you might talk to Northwest Euro... they've got a Hyper Blue 06 R53 that they haven't listed yet. He's had it in shop putting a clutch in (along with other things; don't remember what all was being done). I saw a few pics, and was wanting to see it, but got tired of waiting and pulled the trigger on the one that was here in Tacoma.

 

NO that is aftermarket as someone recovered those seats. They never came like that from the factory.

What most missed in this pic is that it appears to have the Ireland fixed camber plates installed along with the Craven STD plates. Otherwise everything else looks to be in place.