Hi everyone. I'm new to this forum and MINIs and about to purchase my first MCS. I will be using this car for my short daily commute (to add a little excitement to otherwise boring drive).
About the car: This guy at work is selling his 2007 Pepper white MCS with 80,500 miles. It has premium, sports and cold weather package, 17" wheels, sports suspension, bonnet stripes, black leatherette, comfort access, parking sensors and auto transmission (auto is actually preferred so wife can drive it too when needed). Car is clean inside/out, he is the original owner and car was always serviced at the dealership (verified by carfax). It never had any major mechanical issues as per him. Car comes with 6yr/100k extended warranty and extended maintenance plan (2 years or 20k miles remaining). Is $13500 a good deal for this car? Only concern is high mileage 80k+. What do you guys think? I will be making the purchase tomorrow morning. Let me know what you guys think and anything else I need to worry about? Any word of advice before or after purchase?

Thanks!

 

If you would like to get an idea of what others are selling the car for then you can go to autotrader.com and put in the information and get a wide range of prices, from owners to dealers. Prices can vary drastically depending on what part of the country you are in. I sold my 2002 MCS earlier this summer with 78K on it for $8k and a 2003 MCS with 28K on it for $12,400. Suggested retail for a private party sale of your potential vehicle in good condition according to kbb.com is $15.2K and fair condition is $13.6K. NADA.com has the car for $14.5 for an average trade in.

Questions to ask:

How has the car been used? Highway miles, around town, mix?
What maintenance has been done to the car? Fluids changed, brakes, serpentine belt? Check the maintenance recommendations to see what questions you should be asking for determining which maintenance items have been completed. Look at every body panel to check for irregularities. Some accidents do not get reported to carfax.
Ask for maintenance receipts and take the time to read them before purchasing the car. Often dealerships will write comments on the service record that detail what they would recommend be done for service on the car or problems they have noted. These notes are valuable to see what the car has for problems that might not have been fixed because of unwanted expense. If possible, have the car put up on a lift to look under to see what you can see. How clean the engine bay is can sometimes tell you what kind of care the owner has done to his vehicle. Do you see grease on the door hinges or other signs the owner has done basic maintenance to the car. Most important of all is to just take your time and if it does not feel right then wait until it does. Keep in mind that with private sales once you sign the sales slip and give the money you own it, even if it blows the engine on the way home. If you are not sure about the car or not sure of your ability to inspect the car then pay for a mechanic who is familiar with MINI's to check it out for you. Typically that can be done in a half hour and can save you a ton of money. I also know a guy who brought along a code reader with him when he went to purchase the car and read what the car had thrown for error codes. After confronting the owner with the items he would need to repair he was able to knock off $2K from the price. Good luck and let us know how everything goes.

 

Well, I just sold my fully loaded 2007 MCS and I had to stuggle to get even $16k for it (and it only had 45,000 miles). It was super clean as you can see from the photos.

2007 MINI Cooper S - Navigation, Bluetooth & iPod Adapter


NADA.com average trade-in shows $17.2k, but I'm sure that it was clean enough to be worth at least $18.2k for its trade-in value.

Used MINI's are a hard sell right now me thinks.

 

hk007: Common issues with the '07 and later MCS are the high pressure fuel pump and timing chain/tensioner issues. If this car has had it's oil changed on regular intervals (ideal to be more frequent than the condition based recommendations from the MINI's on board computer) you may be OK regarding the timing chain/tensioner. You might ask the seller if the car "rattles" when cold and especially when it has not been used for a few days and overnight temps are below 40 F. If the car has the "rattle" you may want to have it corrected as a condition of the sale or deal with it soon after purchase. MINI has published a letter to all original owners (ask the seller) that covers the high pressure fuel pump up to 120K miles or 10 years from the original "in service" date. You would want to have that letter if the seller has it in case your HP fuel pump fails. Other than that, MINI's are like any other used car, surprises can always happen. Like all cars, ones that are exceptionally clean inside, outside and in the engine compartment show that the owner cared for the car which often indicates it has not been abused and has gotten proper routine maintenance. I hope this helps with your decision.....

 

Thanks all for advice. Very much appreciated. As a result, I've postponed the purchase until Saturday (more time to think about it and may be get someone to inspect the car for me before buying). MINI dealership wants to charge $200+ for PPI for 1-2 hours of labor. This is the same dealership where car was purchased and always serviced. It was last serviced a week ago and the dealership supposedly does a routine maintenance inspection every visit. I'm thinking that if I get the PPI done from them I will also be able to get full service history including detailed notes.

Car was driven by seller's wife, 80 miles round trip to her work. Highway miles. This is the reason car accumulated 80k miles in 4 years. Car is still under extended warranty & maintenance. One would think if there were any known issues, seller would have gotten them fixed. He says car runs smooth has no issues and never had any major work done. I will be seeing and test driving it on Saturday.

@kukaepe
Based on service history on carfax, oil was changed every 21-22k miles (1 year)! This means the timing chain/tensioner might have issues? Is it covered by extended warranty? I guess I can ask mini dealership to check that during PPI.

 

hk007: This is indicative of BMW/MINI condition based maintenance. Many folks believe this is adequate oil change intervals and BMW/MINI know what they are doing. I don't subscribe to this camp but that's just me. I change my oil every 5K. I would ask the dealer if the extended warranty is transferable and if it covers such things as timing chain and tensioner, turbocharger and other major engine components. Good luck on the new MINI...

 

Wow, I am surprised you could only unload your Mini for $16K, it was a very well equipped clean Mini. You could have sold her down here in South Florida for at least $18k. Unfortunately the market dictates what things are worth these days.

 

I went through the same thing with my 2003 Electric Blue MCS. Book for the car in excellent condition was $13.8K. Best I could get was $12.4. And that was after listing it for at least a couple months.

 

Update: Just called the dealership and asked them if they can confirm that this car has 100k extended warranty and 100k extended maintenance. They said the doesn't have extended warranty, only maintenance. Dealer also said that extended maintenance is not transferable (not sure how accurate this statement is).

Oh well. Dealer just made the decision for me. Not buying it without warranty. Seller is either delusion and doesn't know the difference between warranty and maintenance or simply lied to me. No deal.

 

Yeah, I had really hoped that I could of got at least $17.5k for it. Kind of a bummer.

A few things we learned though...

Don't bother loading up your new MINI with expensive options (like leather, nav, bluetooth, etc.) if you're planning on ever selling it as you're just throwing all that money away. Folks in the market for used cars don't seem to care one iota about what options are on the car. They're simply looking for the best price on a clean car with the options only being a secondary afterthought. A loaded MINI might draw more attention, but not if you're asking a whole bunch more money for it than the base model is selling for. Our 2007 MCS had well over $10k in options on it, and we lost every single penny of that money on the resale. Chalk that one up as a lesson learned (although when we bought it new, we had no intentions on ever selling it).

Also, another thing we found out... While I really dislike automatics, your used MINI will sell 10X faster/easier if you have one. 95% of the hits we got on our MINI were from parents looking to buy the car for their daughters, none of whom could drive a stick shift. It's too bad (for me) as I'd never buy a MINI with an automatic transmission.

Lastly, out of all of the options we paid for, the biggest waste of money by a LONG shot was the nav system. What a complete and utter POS that thing was. It was so overly complex to use that we never even bothered with it. What a complete waste of $2,100 plus tax! Do yourself a HUGE favor and don't buy the MINI nav system (or MINI Connected). In four years, mark my words, you'll regret spending the money on it.

We're replacing our 2007 MCS with a new MCS Coupe that has very limited options. We only went with the options that we know we use every day and couldn't live without. After owning five MINIs over the years, I guess it all starts becoming more clear.

 

I just bought an 07 MCS and just wanted to say that you're right on the used car market not really caring about options. Sure I love the options on my MCS, but I really was looking for an MCS not an MCS with Xenons or [insert option here]. I wanted a fun car to drive, few options make any difference (though I'll happily take them). You just have to remember the used car market just looks at what is available at the time and they don't get the choice to custom order a MINI like you can when you buy new and wait 6 weeks.

Not that I don't love the MINI, but when it comes down to it the reason I bought used was the money and I would say used car buyers are much more focused on money than any feature on the car.

 

you should have sold it to me for 16k. I wuda got it

 

Really? I thought extended maintanence could be transferred? I am looking at one, and the seller said that it could be. And rationally speaking, they shud be able to transfer it because it is on the car.

Sorry bro, but if it had maintenance and its transferable I think 13.5k is a good deal. except with such high mileage, u probably cant resell it.

 

If you are buying a used MC and can get the key fob prior to purchase, (not always possible, obviously) you could take it to a Mini dealer. They can read it and tell you all the warranty work that has been done on the car. I learned this only after I bought mine, but it was very useful. For example, I was able to find out, among other things that my timing chain tensioner has been replaced. There is no way I would have known this otherwise.

 

Seller and I looked up the extended maintenance documents and it clearly states that the plan will transfer to the new owner with the car and tells you how to do it.

 

So true. The big-ticket items are moonroof, and in certain climates heated seats. Nothing else matters.

 

Thanks guys for your input. I saw and drove the car yesterday. Everything checked out. Yes it doesn't have the extended warranty, however it does have extended maintenance for 2 years and it is transferable. Seller has every single service record and turns out he had cold start issues in march. He got HPFP, timing chain/tensioner, carbon buildup cleanup along with many other related parts all fixed 6 months ago at 75k miles. To resolve cold start problem his dealership first diagnosed it as a carbon buildup issue and charged him $780 to fix it. That didn't fix the problem and he brought the car back 2 weeks later. At that time, dealership noticed the rattling sound and ended up replacing timing chain/tensioner, HPFP and whole bunch of parts and didn't charge him anything. We all know HPFP is covered but service record says "WARRANTY" under price column for all the timing chain/tensioner and related parts (there was a long list).

I guess this car has all the major known issues taken care of 6 months ago. This is probably a good thing? What do you guys think? I will be picking up the car later today. Thanks!

 

Sounds like it might of taken care of the issue, I just bought a 2006 MCS with 44k miles on it with the winter package, loaded with all the options for $13,900. I bought it from a VW dealership that first had it put up for sale for $18k. I also bought a 4 yr 48k mile VW bumper to bumper warranty along with it. So your right, the market totally determines how much a car is worth!

 

You bought a VW warranty for you MINI? That's interesting. So if you have issues you will take it to your VW dealership to get fixed?

 

That's common for used car dealerships. Nobody would buy a specific dealer backed warranty so VW and other manufacturers are offering these warranties themselves instead. I looked into it when I bought my 07 MCS and found out that these warranties are only just backed by the manufacturer and you can even use most places to do the warranty work. I'll still be able to use my local shop that I trust or the MINI dealer (though its a drive) to do all the work. It's confusing at first, but it works.

 

I would totally go for it! That is a steal of a deal, especially knowing it was well maintained!

 

Yeah I'm glad I bought the warranty knowing all the issues that COULD happen to a Mini Cooper, I once owned a 2002 MC and sure enough everything was going wrong with that car, the windows, gear case was leaking, clutch went out...etc. So I made sure this time around I got the warranty to cover me atleast four years. I only drive about 8900 miles a year, so I know I wont reach the 48k mile mark on the warranty.

 

Hey! Did you used to hang out on celica.net? Your username sounds SO familiar! I used to be on there all the time when I had my Celica.

I see your point, but I don't agree with that type of advice. All of those features you mention are really nice to have when you're actually owning the car... So why worry so much about how much money you'd be "losing" if you actually enjoy the features during ownership? I am SO glad I got Bluetooth (for safety/convenience reasons), the bi-xenon headlights are so bright and useful... and (particularly in my case) my Camden package may be mostly an appearance package plus the novelty of Mission Control, but the car looks damn good and is pretty unique.

I guess my point is, if you enjoy the extra features that you bought and paid a premium for, if they make you happy and are useful to yourself, then why fret about losing money when the time comes to sell your car? It is kind of expected that we will not get the same kind of money back when the time comes to sell.

 

You are indeed correct. Those options (with exception of the nav system which is total garbage IMHO) are fine as long as you go into them knowing that you'll never get a penny back out of them when you resell the car.

If you're planning on keeping your MINI for the long haul, then sure, go ahead and load it up with all the options that make you happy (even that $600 rearview mirror!!! ). However, if you're planning on selling it off once the warranty expires, then you're best to stay away from all of those expensive options. Just my opinion/experience is all.

And no, I've never owned a Toyota (Celica) in my entire life. I've been a lifelong VW, Jeep, and MINI fanatic.