Girlfriend's 08 Mini Cooper S
 

My girlfriend got a Mini Cooper S about a year ago and she just loves it. Whenever she drives it, the first thing she does is put it in "Sport" mode. That makes me smile. I have been helping out with some of the mechanical work, which I enjoy doing. It really hasn't needed much attention yet, but here's what I have done:

1. Cleaned out the windshield washer nozzles with a pin, and then blew compressed air through them. They seem to work well now.

2. Replaced the horn. She didn't like the OE horn and described it as an Oldsmobile horn. She wanted more of a beep beep horn so as to match the personality of the Mini. Ok. The Mini comes with two horns. I replaced one horn with a VW bug horn, and left the other horn in place, but disconnected it electrically. here is a link to the VW bug horn that I used:
http://www.ebay.com/itm/WD-EXPRESS-885-54002-500-Horn-Meyle-OE-Replacement-Horn-/330955205759?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&fits=Make%3AVolkswagen&hash=item4d0e77ac7f&vxp=mtrThe whole job was pretty easy and my girlfriend is pleased with the results, so I am happy too.

Upcoming jobs:
1. There is something rattling in the rear of the car. It is either coming from inside of the lift gate, or inside the rear apron area. I'll be digging into that this weekend.

2. If my girlfriend has one complaint, it would be that the doors are hard to open from the outside. I have to admit that I agree with her on that. It seems that the exterior door handle is a rather poor design. On her doors, you have to depress the trigger quite a ways before the door will unlatch. I will investigate this to see if there is a way to take up some of the slack in that trigger linkage, but my guess is that there is no adjustment, and all we can do is replace parts.

I'm glad I found this forum and I'm sure I will find lots of useful information here.

My 2010 is hard to open as well, especially the passenger side. I was going to start looking into this as well.

Had my 10 for 2 weeks now. Awesome car.

If I come up with something on the exterior door handles, I'll be sure to post about it. I already checked on Youtube, but there didn't seem to be anything on the subject there.

I still have a few months warranty left. Was gonna swing it by the dealer and have them check it out at some point. Will report back if I do.

Great. That would be helpful. I viewed some vaguely related videos on Youtube, and was able to see some images of the cable between the exterior door handle and the latch mechanism, but there didn't appear to be anything that you could adjust that would take up the slack in the cable as far as I could see. I also looked in the service manual that I have, and it had instructions on removal and installation of door latch parts, but there was no information given as far as adjustment.

I had some time to work on that rattle in the rear of the car this weekend, so I thought I would update this post on what was done. Problem is solved. The rattle was happening because the liftgate wasn't being held tight enough to the car body. I fixed it by moving the liftgate latch on its mounting screws. This held the liftgate closer to the car body and eliminated the rattle. It was kind of hard to find the cause of the rattle at first. I sat in the luggage area while my girlfriend drove the car around, and I could easily hear the rattle, but the liftgate did not appear to be moving at all. One time we took a short drive with the liftgate up, and there was no rattle, so that steered me toward adjusting the latch. I suppose that over time the liftgate weatherstrip collapses and allows the liftgate to rattle. Our weatherstrip may have collapsed somewhat, but it doesn't show any sign of deterioration and there are no water leaks in that area, so we're not replacing it at this time.

i have noticed that the windshield washers spray way over onto the roof rather than the windshield. any1 have this issue is its a common Mini issue?

Can i adjust the sprayers to spray on the windshield?

If your sprayers are like those on our 08 MCS, they are not adjustable. Maybe contaminants inside the nozzle are redirecting the spray. Clean them out with a pin and then compressed air.

thnx for the tip!

i never knew sprayers of this type ever came non-adjustable? Mine need a bit of adjusting, but with cars in the past, you can stick a pin or small paperclip tip in the nozzle and adjust it to spray where you want. Are you POSITIVE that is not the case on these cars, MiniPitCrew?

I am not positive that the nozzles are not adjustable. When I looked at the nozzles, they did not appear to be adjustable, so I did not try to adjust them. After cleaning them, they then sprayed solution in the correct direction, so I left it at that. Maybe someone else knows definitively that they can be adjusted as you described.