any useful info on changing the thermostat in 06 mini will be greatly appreciated.

 

Are you looking for the thermostat replacement or do you have the warped housing that's cause a leak? The latter is a slightly more involved process, but it's really just a matter of fanagling the hose clamps on the radiator hose.

It's pretty much locate the thermostat on the side of the engine block,
decide if you want to remove your intake for work space (take a look in the how tos for the CAI install as there's good directions for doing so in there),
Drian the coolant (from the lower radiator hose attachment),
Remove the 3 bolts on the tstat housing
Note the position of the hole on the tstat, the replacement will have to go in this location
Replace thermostat and gasket as one,
If leaking replace housing as well (the metal block warps the plastic housing causing a slow leak) which means removing the three clamps pulling the hoses and attaching the new housing
Put the tstat and gasket in place (note the direction of the tstat and placement of the valve/hole on the Tstat)
Bolt on the housing
put intake back in place
refill coolant and bleed air from system

Some searching should find you some mroe details on the steps I just glazed over and if anyone has their bentley manual handy they can provide you the tq specs for the bolt (mine is currently boxed up from a recent move) Hopefully that gets you looking in the right direction.

 

Drew is right. If you go to all the trouble of replacing the thermostat may as well for a few dollars more have the replacement ABS plastic thermostat housing/gasket on hand.

Be sure to use the proper coolant rec by MINI and maybe throw some Waterwetters in the mix as well.

Clean the throttle body plate too while all that is off, and if you have a standard tranny, lube the linkgage for the shifter which is under the OEM air box.

 

Make sure your new thermostat has the clear colored gasket, the white gasket is the old version.

As for the plastic housing. I've only replaced 1 in 7years, and prob 100 or so thermostat gaskets, so I wouldn't call it a normal problem to need a housing.