After 4 months of “fixing” the R50 we bought no running we are driving for the first time and I’m surprised by what I’m seeing with the URO strut mounts.

First time these saw load was yesterday as the car was on jack stands.

Is the height of the strut and the cracking of the rubber surface normal?

 

You did buy URO. They do not have the best reputation for longevity. That does look like cracking of the coating that is applied. Keep an eye on it, and watch for actual cracks between the rubber and steel. Also listen for clunks. There is also a thread from someone who had lots of issues with upper mounts. Are you sure things went back in the right order? I’ve done a few on mine in 20 years - Used Lemforder - never had issues. Current ones are 6 years old?

 

That looks like a failed mount. I don’t remember the stock mounts sitting that high.

 

Disappointing, but this is how you learn

I’m thinking a swap to Lemforder or ECS heavy duty might be warranted.

also thinking to add Cravespeed UTI or the Hamburg Tech plates.

https://www.cravenspeed.com/under-to...sM#tab-reviews

https://www.pelicanparts.com/More_In...jK_SwWz2uBDgCb

 

Read this thread.

 

Lemforder is now a made in China product, not recommended. Go with OEM or Ireland Engineering ( which have HD bearings and are rebuildable).

 

Does the Ireland Engineering product negate the need for other reinforcement plates?

 

Yes, they are basically underators, which is much better protection for the strut towers (mushrooming) than top mounted strut defenders. I believe they also add an additional 1* of camber.

 

FYI. Reinforcement plates are to strengthen the strut towers, not the struts themselves. Your towers may have also "ballooned" which is a common problem on Gen 1 Mini's. See ModMini on YouTube for a corrective measure.

 

Son just came home in the mounts are definitely failing

The idea of Irish engineering mounts is good, but quite the price increase!
oof, to add insult to injury IE wants $30 shipping!

 

Both IE and OEM aren’t cheap. But there are certain components you don’t want to cheap out on. This is one of them.

 

This vehicle is a 3/2002 which seems to be a changeover time I'll need to look into, this whole thing is reminding me of my R53 made in April 2004 which bridged some changes (bit me in the behind several times)

 

Look at post #19 of this thread

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...er-plates.html

 

there was a post on this recently that covered this topic. it went deep. i think others have mentioned it here / above

 

Checking in as the guy who started that thread and was pulling my hair for weeks. The genuine MINI mounts that I eventually put in are going strong. Mounts from ECS, Lemforder, URO, etc. are likely to immediately fail, like I experienced and seen again here. "OEM" isn't good enough - buy genuine or go with coilovers that have solid camber plates.

 

This is so strange as on my R53 I had Koni reds with KYB strut mounts and never saw any issue

 

Times have changed. There are lots of poor quality parts out there.

 

Yep, I can only assume that lower quality rubber is now the norm, even with once reliable brands like Lemforder.

 

Yep - Curious after reading this thread; I too decided to check the torque and the condition of my top Lemforder mounts I'd installed only 6k - 8k mi ago. With cooler temps in the morning @47° they are starting to creak and noticed how bulged they were. Not as bad as the OP's - (tops are perfectly level with the opening), but just the same. These parts are getting expensive. To the point ; I don't know what brand to trust anymore.

 

I believe Lemforder began switching their manufacturing of many parts to China during Covid. Quality dropped like a rock, as expected.

 

This seems to be the issue. I installed some other Lemforder parts recently (either outer ball joints or end links) and noticed they were marked as being made somewhere in Europe (Slovenia? I can't remember). Unfortunately, the now made in China strut mounts are garbage. So that leads to the question of who (or where) are the genuine MINI mounts coming from, since they're still good.

 

I’m wondering if there aren’t different sources for some items such as Lemforder as ECS assured me that theirs are from Germany.

 

Who knows. I went through two sets of ECS "heavy duty" mounts. They looked and were packaged nicer than the Lemforder and genuine mounts, but failed even faster than the Lemforder set I tried first.