My Mini broke down. The water pump was leaking badly, which caused it to overheat. I was on the highway, and drove it about a mile to a safe stopping location. After letting it cool all the way down, I topped of the coolant and babied it to the shop about 5 miles away without overheating. But all that was too much, and damaged the engine: cylinder heads 2 and 3 are out of round. It is leaking oil in a few places and needs some timing adjustments.

Mini dealer said that they could replace the water pump, heads, and fix the leaks and timing to get it running properly again (for about $5000), but recommend to replace the engine(for about $9500). Problem is, the blue book value is only about $8000.

I'm going to cut my losses and get a new car. The dealership will give us $1500 on a trade-in. I imagine it is worth more in a private sale to someone who wants a fixer-upper, but I'm no expert and don't want to get caught in a bad deal.

What's it worth? Am I making the right decision to trade it in?

 

First I'd seek out a quote from a reputable indy mini shop. You will have a much better idea of what to do at that point without dealer inflation priced in.

 

This ^^^^

Also, a indy shop might give you an option of putting in a used engine. $9,500 seems high even for a dealership.

 

Yeah 9500 is extremely high... cause a brand spanking new engine is what? 4500? I'm curious where the other 5k in charges is coming from. Not really surprised though its so high. They must think they have a sucker on their hands or its pretty slow at that particular dealership haha. Indy shops are definitely the way to go. You may have to wait a while though depending on how busy the shop is.

 

You will get the best possible advice if you tell us where you are.

 

Well the biggest issue is the recent price increase on the engines. They use to retail at $4k, but now just shy of $7k, and that's just the part. So still needs to be installed. I fear we are going to see more and more dead MINIs like this. We have been stock piling cores so we will likely be rebuilding engines to get the price of these repairs down.

 

for the same motor with same inherent problems ?

Guess when my warranty is up I'll be switching brands as well. Bad enough they turned my clubman into a 4 door family car/station wagon.

I thought I found a new brand to stay with, was a chevy guy for 35 years.

 

And you have to wonder why the huge increase ... Oil is way down , energy costs are down, raw material costs are down across the board. But, the engines go way up in price .

 

Any suggestions on indy shops in NYC? I'm having the same issue. My dealership took 3 inspections for them to tell me my engine needs replacement due to blowby in the 3rd cylinder...I've never had any issues starting my car, never noticed oil on the ground, and no engine light warnings!

 

Do you have more details on the dealer or shop finiding regarding the damage? I have replaced heads and swapped engines. They are fairly to moderately simple. You can find a good engine on ebay somewhere from 2k to 3.5k. Or, buy a car from salvage auction for 1500, take the engine and transmission and sell extr parts :-) im in philly, let me know if you need more help.