All my vehicles are paid for except my mini. It's an '08 MCSa with 20K miles . I paid 31K+ and took a look at my payoff.... after a year, it's still 29K+.

I really wanted to buy a new JCW and even at 41K, payments are roughly 70 bucks a month more than I'm paying.

Sad part is, not only can I not get 29K for my car, I bought and installed JCW stage I kit, JCW big brake kit, JCW ground effects, JCW coils among other stuff.

After modifying cars for almost 30 years, I understand you can't get your money back from mods but I ain't even close to getting payoff without that stuff.

Oh well, guess if I want the JCW, I'll have to really take a beating on selling my car.

Mark

 

Sounds like you have a very fine ride with an excellent set up as it is. Why not just drive it and enjoy it!

 

I agree with Shortbus's owner: sounds like you have a pretty nice car. I had the chance to drive the doors off a JCW at MTTS LA. If you have the JCW coils installed, you have most of what really makes the JCW different from the MCS. I'd go out and enjoy what you have, knowing you have JCW cornering without having the JCW engine's increased fuel burn.

 

41k for a mini.. get a 135i for that price and 300 horses - have a blast...(I have one)

 

Thanks guys, I do have a nice car and it's setup very nicely. I really should be satisfied with what I have but I just wish I had ordered mine originally..... that way I could have gotten the nav, the JCW engine, etc, etc.

Since I'm obviously not going to get anywhere near what my payoff is, I may as well drive it till the wheels fall off.

Mark

 

I know exactly how you feel, I wanted a vert when the new ones weren't available yet, so I went for a sunroof. Now I see cabrios and JCW ones at that, and want one! But I love my car, and haven't even touched the performance it has already. I'm gonna stick with mine for a while. I might give a cabrio a test drive, and if I really miss top down motoring I'll plan on a trade-in when the warranty is up.
Hopefully the JCW stage 1 will be available for MCSa cabrios by then

 

I have always been perfectly satisfied w/ Coopers and am glad of it. I can generally go browse around a MINI dealership or out for a test drive w/ minimum angst.

 

for $41k you can buy a used 06 porsche cayman--i have both the 07 cayman s and the 09 mini cooper s--i like the porsche better

 

Definite +1.

 

I never understand the "with that much money you can go buy X instead". I mean if I had enough money to buy a space ship to fly to work, I would rather spend that money on a MINI. Only a MINI is a MINI. This isn't the "I couldn't afford a XX so I bought a MINI instead, help me make the most of it" forum.

 

+1

 

Ok whats the diff. between the engines? Just wait until Mynes cracks the ECU code then have it tuned and you will smoke a JCW

 

X2....





I have been waiting.... to the point I had to go buy a Stage I JCW kit. I'm still waiting for someone to come out with a decent tune.


Mark

 

Sure it will smoke a JCW but you can be sure that the reliability of the 1600cc engine will be affected. You can't extract a lot more power without either beefing up the bottom end or accepting the fact that the engine will not last as long as originally designed. Power is expensive no matter how you look at it. Formula 1 engines are built to put out huge amounts of power from 3.0 (or is it 2.5?) liters. But they only have to last about 400 miles.

 

I bought my MINI two years ago and just paid it off about four months ago. I was paying almost double the monthly payment (was on a 60 month loan) to make that happen. I also got a really bad interest rate, 6.9 percent... so wanted to get rid of that asap. BMW offers 0.9 percent on new cabrios now, but MINI sales are so strong I guess they don't need to do any deals on loans. Sounds like your car is nicely set up... why not keep it till just before the warrenty runs out and then try to sell it?

 

evo x ftw

 

Hey Mark, the grass is always greener on the other side. Your car is beautiful! Drive it for a little bit. When gas prices climb again, and they will, you'll get your chance to sell at a premium.

 

I had a vert Wrangler for a bit. After a while, you kinda get tired of it. No sunroof in my JCW. I'm glad.

You'll be thankful years down the road because you won't have skin cancer LOL.

 

I hear you, we don't have much left to pay off on our '08, but given the economy and the huge increase in dealer inventory/used inventory, our MCS is worth a fraction of what it was last fall. I suspect a similarly equipped JCW would end up costing another 10-15k depending on if I was to sell ours privately or trade it in. The factory JCW just has that pop & burble you can't currently recreate with bolt on parts.... but $10k or more, I'm going to hold out a bit longer & hope one of these tuners will come through.

 

I drove one yesterday and all I can say is WOW can that thing move.

 

my buddy is running 397awhp on the x. no fair =[ bolt ons and a dyno tune. he still needs downpipe, lower ic piping, and shooting for bigger turbo... our minis are struggling for 200whp. weak

 

Yeah but you still get 30+ mpg and have fun doing it, while he's making two trips to the gas station to suck on fuel.

 

Ok what are you talking about? My car or a R56? If you are talking about my car then you are wayyyy off base. The bottom ends on a R53 have been proven to be fine with over 400 WHP. They are bullet proof. Now if you boost up the boost then I would need to change out my pistons to some forged ones. What I was asking orangecrush was what the difference was between a R56 MCS engine compared to a JCW engine. I think they are the same engine correct? They just add some bolt ons to the JCW, I think.

 

the JCW engine has a few small changes, 10:1 compression vs. the MCS 10.5:1, supposedly stronger pistons, as for bolt-ons, I believe the injectors are different, the MAF is different, turbo's slightly different (housing appears the same), different turbo inlet pipe, different programming (up to 19psi boost and the euro burble), different bov, and the exhaust has no 2nd cat ...

upping the horsepower/torque a significant amount, you're going to run into problems with the dual mass flywheel (for which there is no aftermarket replacement yet) long before you have to worry about the bottom end.

 

Yeah, what he said....

Also, pistons on a JCW are bigger bore I believe. Perhaps someone can confirm that.

Mark