This is your old r56 right?



I valet for mini and all the other dealer at north scottsdale and I saw this out back.

 

Ahh my car! I was wondering where they put it! It still has my catless dp on it, they are supposed to take it off for me.

That's cool that you work at MINI! Have I met you? I work at PAG too...up in accounting

You should buy my Invidia exhaust from me!!!! I want to sell it to someone locally so I don't have to deal with shipping it to someone.

 

Well kinda I am a Inventory valet, so I park some of the new cars that come in and all the cars that go to wash I take back to the dealers. I'm not sure we have met, I have seen your car around though, in fact I saw you going down princess and heard your exhaust, sounds good! I actually was planning on getting better exhaust. I think you might have seen me one time when I was pulling out of princess lot, I drive a pepper white r56 and I just had the rims painted black.

 

I love my R56 but I’m jealous of the GP. The car you chose is a beauty but the best part is the supercharger. That’s the thing I miss the most about any of my R53’s.

Congrats on the new car.


Mark

 

Congrats. That GP is very nice. Wish I had one.

Thanks for all your feedback on the R56.

 

Very cool. I found who owns my former GP. I ordered that car sight unseen when it was announced in the summer of 2006 after reading about it on MotoringFile having driven a 2002 Cooper S during college and loving every single minute of it.

I still remember going to MINI of Dallas the same day I signed off on my first post-college job offer and putting down a deposit and then waiting several weeks for it to arrive. Loved that car and every once in a while I get a hankering for another go in it. The sound of that car at WOT with the JCW exhaust and the supercharged whine...still gives me the chills when I think about it.

I traded it in at BMW of Dallas (sister dealership to MINI of Dallas) for a 135i in the fall of 2008. The GP had held its value incredibly well and it made for a great deal on the 135i. I think MoD CPO'd it and were looking to sell it for about 30k back then.

I'm back in the MINI fold now -- my wife and I just picked up a 2012 Countryman S over the weekend. We're consolidating to one car for now while her new business takes off....so far we've been fighting for the keys.

 

This is really cool to see MINI owners pass their actual cars, car knowledge and anecdotes between each other on this forum!

PS, I would die for a set of those GP rims on my car!

 

You can get replicas

 

I was hoping we'd cross paths!!

I saw your original thread when you got it delivered and I knew that you had traded it for a 135...amazing what you can find from Googling a GP's # .

Do you know anything about who owned it in-between us? After Texas it ended up in New Mexico and I found it online at a Honda dealer in Albuquerque. So I too bought it sight un-seen...but from what I could tell it was darn clean, so I took the plunge and bought it. Through research at my MINI dealer before I bought it, I found out it was CPO'd...I don't think the Honda dealer knew that.

I absolutely love it, its my 3rd MINI and by far the best. You can be happy to know it found a happy home in my garage...and I plan to keep it forever

 

Ha. Yeah after I sold it I tried to track it every once in a while via Google. I saw it when it was on sale in NM and I showed my wife the listing on Autotrader or cars.com or whichever site it was.

I know that immediately after I traded it in it stayed in Dallas because I caught a glimpse of it three or four times around the neighborhood I used to live in. Looked like another young guy in his 20s or early 30s had bought it. I never got a chance to talk to the guy because the two or three times I saw the car I seemed to be headed in the oppposite direction or stuck in traffic.

I'm glad the car has ended up with a fellow MINI enthusiast! Rest assured the car was completely stock and well taken care of while it was in my possesion. The only thing I ever did was change the runflats when they ran out of tread. I forget exactly what I changed them to but I think it was to some Falkens.

Have fun!!

 

Who was your MA at MINI of Dallas?

 

Congrats! I am a little late to the MINI party, so never had the pleasure of driving an R53, let alone a GP. From what I have read and seen, looks like something to add to the proverbial "bucket list". Back in 2004, I looked at MINI's but never seriously, as I really wanted a convertible. I ended up with a new Sebring Vert. - not much fun to drive, but top down motoring was the priority and I really enjoyed that - hard to beat a nice summer evening trip with the top down. Looking back now, I wish I had explored the notion of an R53 with a sunroof, but that's water under the bridge. Now I am loving my R56 MCS and dreaming of a JCW someday, or better yet a second generation GP.

Have fun.

 

Nice GP Got mine in November 2011 and have been LOVING it since. Welcome to the "club"

 

I was thinking of following your lead with my carbon-laden 09 MCS (sitting on the Scottsdale lot until next weekend so it can get walnut blasted)... but I've never driven a 1st gen (let alone a GP), have always heard from MINI techs and the like that 1st gens on average have more problems than 2nd gens (stock, anyway), and think that driving such a special car as a GP over the cratered obstacle courses we call 'streets' down here in Tucson would be cruel and unusual punishment. Well, that, and I like modern conveniences such as bluetooth integration — hate to kill myself and a perfectly good GP because my phone rang in my pants.

I think my best bet is to cross my fingers and hope the carbon issues have truly been worked out on the N18, and wait for a bespoke JCW roadster.

 

Good luck! Same old D/I story...

As for the 1st gens having more problems, well that's where your informant is terribly WRONG! Yes they have their quirks, but any auto manufacturer does. Ford, Chevy, Chrysler, BMW, MB, Honda, KIA, THE LIST GORS ON... And on... And on...
ALL of them have PROBLEMS! Just like MINI, some even worse than the R56. The R53 generation only had ONE major problem, and that wasnt apparent on ALL models like the R56's newest recall.
R56=JUNK, it's what happens when they change an econo market beater of a motor to a high performance market car, and tell you to change the oil every 15000+ miles! It just cant take the abuse, NOT ALL MINIs are like that though.
The Tritec engines in the R53 (1st gen) MINIs can handle WAY more abuse than ANY of the "Prince engine" 2nd gen R56's, it's a PROOVEN FACT. Do you know of any R56's making even 300 let alone 400, and soon to be 450+ horsepower? NO YOU DONT! It just cant happen reliably. 1st Gen's TriTec CAN, sorry you showed up about 10 minutes too late to the party.

If ANYBODY has an opperitunity to ditch their R56 for a GP (Hell I would even take an R50 auto convertable over an R56 JCW) DO IT!

Oh yeah, and if your phone jingles your B***'S when your driving... Just let it go! Youre DRIVING... Not in a conversation, you can always call them back!

 

Almost 6 years on, the GP still looks absolutely incredible. Many congratulations!

 

So the Justacooper, which doesn't have the auxiliary water pump at all, isn't an R56?

Good to know...

 

I know 1st gen vs 2nd gen can be a bit of a religious war around here sometimes, but I'm going off what MINI techs tell me. They tell me the only issues that seem to be inherent with the R56 platform are a bad oil pan gasket and carbon buildup inherent with direct-injection engines. They said the R56 was, overall, a big reliability improvement over the 1st gens, with which they've seen a much wider variety of issues that appear common to the platform. I'm not that personally familiar with the 1st gen design, but I see no reason not to trust the techs.

As for the recent R56 recall; that doesn't concern me too much because a) MINI will fix it for free, and b) it's only been a problem on 12 cars worldwide. As I understand it, they're recalling because in the rare event it becomes a problem, it tends to be a dramatically catastrophic one... but again, it's being addressed. I'm more concerned about something like R53 strut tower mushrooming with all the potholes in my region.

Also, I'm not looking to push more max horsepower out of the engine. I know that's the sort of thing Thumper was into, and that probably contributed to his R56 issues, but I'm not. I don't doubt that the 1st gens may be a much better option for this sort of goal, but even if I were to get a GP, it would remain stock (in the drivetrain, anyway).

That said, I'm sure neither a 1st gen nor 2nd gen is like I'm getting an Edsel or anything.

 

I've been reading these threads for awhile now and learning a ton. I thought I'd post here first to introduce myself, for those of you in the Phoenix area, I am the current owner of the R56 Thumper traded for his GP. I purchased it back around the beginning of January. So if you see me around feel free to say hi or something. When I first saw the car I didn't know a thing about it but as Thumper stated above it's amazing what you can find by Googling it. That simple search lead me here to NAM. Once I knew that the car belonged to Thumper I read all of his treads and found out more about the Mini than the dealer I bought it from ever could have imagined. I was really excited! Knowing that Thumper had mods on the R56 and had it tuned my goal is to get it back to where it needs to be. So as of now I am planning to get a Forge FMIC very shortly, I know there's a lot of talk about Helix, but Forge is practically it same and I found a really good deal online. As soon as that's done I am getting a RMW Tune from Jan. It needs to be tuned in order to work correctly with the JCW turbo that's on it. My number one goal is to keep the temps down, so the FMIC is necessary. That's just a start. The aquamist will be next, I hope to get that before the AZ summer heat arrives. I really hope the pistons will hold up with the new motor this time. I am going to do all I can to make it last. Please feel free to to give me any advice I am very open to learning more and hearing your opinions.

 

Welcome, sir! It's cool to see these cars stay on the forums only with different owners.