You must not have sold your Focus yet.

Best of Luck to you.

 

Love me or hate me I am the same guy that owned that car. Still have the NY accent now with much less attitude. And I have not sold my Focus yet.

 

Well I am approved for a car loan through my credit union at 5.55 Percent. So as long as All goes well tomorrow i will be driving this before X mass

 

I think it is a good deal. Price wise. Sounds like a well kept car. I think you should buy it. Your gonna pay much more for much less if you don't.

 

Well after going back to the dealer today so they could evaluate my trade (04 svt focus with every option and 50k miles) we started dealing. They gave me 8500 for my trade (I would have liked a bit more but it needs new tires, Front pads and rotors, a new Hood. That is about 2 k worth of work). So I felt that was fair. I told them I wanted to take 500 off for the non runflats, and upon further inspection I noticed a crack in the bumper which would be another 500 off (needs new Front bumper and paint)

My salesman rights up my demands and then comes back and says they would take 16,998 and they repair and paint the front bumper. I said them ever so kindly "what happens if you fix it and i don't like the way it was repaired?". Lets just make a deal at 16,498. My sales man talks to his manager and then comes back.

DEAL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I will have my mini By Christmas...WOOOt



Big doofy cup holder will be removed:

Cracked bumper:


Tail of the dragon here I come in MAY!!!!!!!

 

Congrats! Wouldn't even bother with repairing and respraying that bumper; you can pick one up much cheaper on eBay or the NAM Marketplace, even with the shipping charges. I've never been a fan of trying to repairing plastic and a factory painted bumper will be a much better match.

I'll look for you at the Dragon!

 

Congrats on the MINI! I think you got a prety good deal on it so thats awesome.

BEATNUT

 

Wonderful - welcome back to the "club"

 

That a lot of mileage for two years!

 

Congrats on your new Mini, well really congrats it's almost yours

 

Several ways of looking at that - a 2005 could be close to three years old now - somewhere between 16k and 24k / year - bearing in mind I managed to go 44K in the last 18 months I would not consider it to be high miles.

Secondly, to travel 20K/ year you have to consider that a decent percentage of the miles are probably freeway miles. Now this is way better to my eyes than something that is three years old and has 12K on the clock - thats probably 12K in short journeys, never really got the engine warm. On such a car you are going to see strained charging systems, bad batteries, electrical issues in general.

I bought mine on its first birthday with 15K on the clock.

Assuming the maintenance was kept up, I would have no issue with it at all.

 

I agree, nice buy. Now get out there and drive it.
Snows?

 

Check out this thread, a tad high (IMHO) but it fits the bill.

 

Check the strut towers first !!!

 

Thanks for everyone's responses.. I am glad to be apart of the Mini family again. I also checked the strut towers and they are not mushroomed.

 

Congrats, I agree w/ the post that said high miles for 2 yrs=easy miles. Looks good.

 

You're exactly right. I have put over 61,000 miles on my '05 in the two years and one week that I have owned it. I commute over 100 miles each day. Probably 75% of my miles have been spent on the highway. I still have my original brakes and exhaust. Still looks, feels and smells like a new car!

 

Looks like a good deal - I might have tried to get them to throw in some kind of warranty, but you did great!

 

Great looking MINI! And.. a heart felt congratulations!!

I also own a "lightly" optioned '05 MCS with 20,500 miles and according to Edmunds.com, TMV (True Market Values), my MCS has been valued as follows:

Trade-In = $18,000
Private sale = $19,700

So you did fairly well. Remember that the factor that worked in your favor was the high mileage of the car. 50K miles on a 2 year old car is simply a lot of miles.

If you have a good independent mechanic, you should be OK. 2005 was a very good year for the MINI in terms of quality and reliability. My '05 MCS has not yet required a single unscheduled dealer trip for a warranty related repair in the 21 months since I have owned it. the car is rock solid, no rattles, no issues whatsover.

I am sure you will enjoy your '05 MCS inmensely and much more than the '02 you used to own. Personally there is a big difference between the 2002 MCS and the 2005+ MCS.

Enjoy!

 

Thanks for the info C4. I have met a Few Mini'ers here in Ohio and I have a shop that I will be dealing with. Plus i am pretty handy myself unless it comes to Fuel...long Story. Yes my Mini Advisor (Eric at Helix) told me to buy an 05 or 06 otherwise he beet me with a wet noodle.

I started planning my Mod list, now i just need to save$$. I will be doing a Pulley, Exhuast, Intake, Suspension, Rear sway bar, and different wheels. I will also add Sirus Satelite Radio.

I may also add a cam and bigger brakes.

How can I tell if it has LSD? other than a Big Burnout????

 

Email or call MINI USA and give them your Vin thats what i did.

 

Yeah, with the VIN number, any MINI dealer can pull out the original factory configuration sheet from the BMW database.

Another easy and quick way to know if your car has LSD from factory is to look at the build date in the placard inside the driver's door jamb. If your MCS was built before 1/2005, means that it doesn't have the LSD. If it was built on or after 1/2005, then there is a chance that your car has it.

But given the low level of equipment on your car, as originally configured, I doubt the previous owner ordered it with LSD, but you never know.

BTW, I have a 2/2005 build MCS and I intentionally did not order the factory LSD.

 

Make sure you do a background check on the vehicle (Carfax). Been a lot of flood damaged vehicles running around.

 

Thanks for the Info. I will call them with the vin. The carfax came up clean on the Vehicle so all is good

 

Get it checked by your independ guy, one last time, just in case.

But from the pics, seems like a solid and well taken care of car.