New owner of this 2011 Base cooper Manual since yesterday.. 107K miles. Technically it's gonna be my son's in 5 months but I wanted him to learn how to wrench and practice driving stick on his OWN future ride so he has a vested interest in not throwing it in a ditch.
I've had 3 minis myself (first gen when it came out, then 2 S over the years) but it's been a while my last post was 2016 !
The car looked great overall and is sound of body and expensive stuff (Catalysts, sunroof, AC, Airbags, seat sensor - just remembering my old minis), but all the consumables are consumed !!! When I got home and realized my BMW scanner also did Minis (oops) - while there was nothing on the dash, I found a plethora of codes, never seen so many in my life.. I do believe however a lot of those are "never cleared" historical codes and 80% of them due to a bad battery, a lot are "low voltage" something or other..
Lots of sulfation on the terminals and 12.3V, miracle it starts.. Also a bit of noise over 70 mph that may be a wheel bearing...

So the plan is for the kid and I to hit youtube, and do front Wheels bearings (not sure about rears ?), Oil/filter change, plugs and coils, air and cabin filters, discs + pads and sensors, a new battery, investigate if key#2 can be recharged (dead), fix a tail gate button, maybe a lower engine mount. After all that he should have a more of a clue and some respect for the machine.

Some generic questions if you have the patience: Is coding the battery really really necessary ? I Mean I never coded it on my BMW and nobody died. Not even the battery.
#2: If a depressed to the floor clutch pedal is 0, and off the pedal is a 5 - the clutch bites is at about a 4 right now. Uncomfortably high for smooth 1-2 shifts... Is that normal ? I immediately thought 107K, worn clutch, but the paperwork says "clutch still good" from a mechanic not long ago, and zero slip. Just wondering as I read a lot of them have a high bite point. Thanks !

 

Sounds like you have some fun days ahead!

The second battery can be recharged through use. The key fob slot in the dash has a small inductive charger that will charge the fob as you drive around. As long as it starts the car when you use it, it will charge from use. I usually try to swap out my fobs every couple of weeks or so just to keep them charged up.

The only time you have to recode the car for a new battery is if the car has the battery monitor on the ground cable. If no battery monitor, coding the battery is pointless.

The clutch engagement height sounds normal to me. Start worrying when the engagement point gets closer to the floor.

 

Thanks for the reply Nik, I appreciate the data about the clutch, maybe I will raise the seat or something and that late bite will feel more natural then ! Battery would not recode with my reader but I saw no extra ground cable.
Well so far I replaced the battery, removed lots of sulfating from connectors, slathered dielectric grease, repainted the battery tray and cleared the codes and so far... the only ones that came back were 2 tail light errors which ...actually work perfectly. Reading up on that I'll go clean connections and check wires for bad connections ;-)
Tomorrow we change oil, plugs and coils.. I find the engine very clickety/clattery but the chain guide/tensioner stuff I read about doesn't seem to apply, it's not at startup and then going away, more all the time and not that loud... Maybe it's the loud injectors I read about - runs pretty damn good.. Will glue some bits, repair some trim with bad clips, and take it for a fast run again to check bearings..