Hi - I'm considering buying an 06 Cooper S with 48,000 miles. I'm interested in knowing what life expectancy I can expect from the supercharger and water pump. Thanks. Jay

 

Depends - Some on this site have well over 100k with no problems and other have had the SC die at 40k.
I have 58k on my 04 with not a hint of trouble.
MINI suggests service on the SC at 100k, so for me that is what I am planning for, with a back-up fund in case.

 

Hello Jay, the AVG life of the SC is 100K +/- the issue is the PTO gear box on the back that runs the water pump. Life of water pump is all over the place.

Key is to not run the PTO gear dry for too long.

 

56,000 miles and no problems. I think if you run anything more than a 15% pully and race your MINI you could be asking for problems.

Otherwise if your MINI is stock, you'll be OK.

 

129,000 miles and six seasons of autocross, and no problems...

however, I will be replacing it this winter -- there is such a thing as pushing one's luck I reckon...

 

Hey Charlie, you may not even need a rebuild now. Check out https://wiki.bentleypublishers.com/d...D95C01C6FBF8F9 do the service. If the PTO gear box gives you less then 2oz of gear lube then you have an issue.

Here's the issue the seal between the PTO gear box and the rotors goes bad and the rotors suck the PTO dry. Once that starts it's done. The bearing in front of the seal and the seal are both captive and must be machined out in order to replace them. Be careful with "re-builders" because not all of them are replacing this bad seal and one that does is just "gluing" the bearing back in and that glue product breaks down and all he!! breaks loose. We know this because we have rebuilt them those units.

 

Mine just crapped out at 67K (water pump as well). Close to $2K in parts. Run from that car.

 

Sorry to but in but I too am in the market for an 05-06 S.
mini b Are you suggesting stay away from the S models and stick with base, over one incident or have you had other problems?

I'm wondering how the turbos fare vs the supercharger. Unfortunately, the 2nd gens are slightly larger and slightly heavier in steering vs the 1st gen from what I hear...

Jay, have you considered the 2nd gen S w/turbo? I'm sure they too are not without their problems though. How bad do you want the extra 50-60 HP?

 

67K on an 04 with a 15 % Pulley, No Noise and No issues with the SC so far

 

for the OP, here's a thread that might be worth rummaging around in

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...h-mileage.html

by the way, www.google.com takes a search argument called "site", as in "site:www.northamericanmotoring.com" which I find to be the best approach to searching on these forums