I have a 20009 Cooper. Bought it in May 2011. The car has 48.5K miles on it, 1.5K miles and it will be out of warranty.

The history of my MINI says it was a rental car.

So far, I have replaced the following, all under warranty;
1. Truck latch
2. Truck struts
3. Drivers seat (some airbag sensor was bad)
4. The radio (bad pixels)
5. The key cradle (would not recognize the key)

This seems like an awful lot of repairs since May of last year.

Today I had the first oil change in the car (the Universal City Mini dealer kept insisting I didn't need one until I told him today that I really wanted one). The technician said the oil was kind of clumpy. It was not as fluid as it should be. The dealership added some detergent stuff to clean up the valves, pistons, and whatever else it cleans up. They didn't charge me for that.

Any thoughts on the future of this car?

 

If the dealer added detergent additive to the oil, you should change it, and the filter again in about five hundred to a thousand miles, just to make sure that any crud still in the oil and suspended by the detergent is all gone.

If the compression and the oil pressure reads in spec, these are things a MINI shop can check, I'd say it'll be alright.

Dave

 

Sounds like pretty minor stuff for a Mini. My 2008 has had the following:

1. Left strut replaced for noise.
2. Hood release cable broken repaired.
3. Vanity mirror door broken replaced.
4. Timing chain/tensioner replaced for noise/out of limits.

So IMO your car is doing pretty darn good and I think mine is doing good too. My warranty expires next month, not too worried at this point.

I would be worried about "clumpy" oil though, as mentioned above change it again soon to get the detergent out and see what it looks like.

 

I agree with the others about the oil, epecialy since MINI recently changed their oil requirements to once a year/ 10K.

Of course I don't go that long, changing mine every 7,500.

Other than the oil, those really don't sound much like problems to me.... why are you concerned about them?

I didn't know the 20009's were out already!