OK, I've spent a few hours reading all the mushrooming / strut mount posts...

I think my MINI is suffering from mushrooming and possible strut mounts that are about to fail. I just want some experienced MINI owners to confirm it.

From looking at pics of other people's strut mounts, mine look different. Other MINIs look like the cap on top of the strut is down inside the strut tower, under the lip of the open circle. On mine, it looks like the cap is above the lip of the open circle.

Is the strut mount supposed to be cone shaped towards the cap in the center? Hope so, mine is... or is it supposed to be flat? It doesn't look cracked or damaged from the top. However, looking at pics of new unused ones, it looks like new ones curve up and then down towards the middle, where mine are clearly going from the outside edges straight up to the cap on the strut in a cone shape.

Here's a collection of strut tower pics from my car:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neufusion/tags/mushroomed/

And WTF is this little bump on the lip? How'd that get there?
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3089/...80280d90_b.jpg

 

Perhaps you could put this question in the extremely extensive sticky thread where you read all the information about the mushrooming topic?

There nothing different in your car vs. others, and there is no point in starting yet another thread on the same old topic...