looking for a Mini for my daughter

[sgregory]

i'm looking to buy a Mini for my daughter. what should i look out for? any help would be great.. thank you so much for anything

scott 46203

[skmini]

Hello Scott and welcome to our board. As you will find, many of us here are just as in love with the MINI brand as we are with our vehicles and there is a great deal of knowledge. What age is your daughter? Is this going to be her first car? The MINI is a great car inside and out and is very fun to drive. There are a few downsides to having such a unique automobile.

-Reliability: There are certain years and models that are known to have more troubles that others. For instance, an 's' model will have either a supercharger or turbocharger depending on the year. History has shown us that the early R56's (2007 and 2008) 'S' models are known to have issues (thought mine is an 07 and has been great to me). There will just be different opinions on this but I would say if you stick with the non-s models, she would be a lot better off with potential problems.

-Cost of Repair: It is a european car and they can be very costly to repair. Also, you will find that most independent repair shops and even BMW dealerships will not work on these cars.

-Cost of Gas: Though not everyone does this, MINI recommends using at least the 89 octane gas but I just always use the highest possible. Also, MINIs use full synthetic oil for best longevity so this can get costly if yours uses some oil like mine.

Can your daughter drive a manual transmission? The 2006 automatic transmissions have also been known to have failures so I would avoid that particular model as well.

If your daughter's heart is set on a MINI for a car, I would suggest a 2009 or newer R56 non 's' model either automatic or manual trans. These seem to be pretty solid all around and with it being a few years into the redesign of the 2nd generation, they improved on some of the issues from the earlier years.