2003 Mini Cooper S.
Backstory on the acquisition and the
are in the Crangslist thread for anybody interested. I won't bore you with repeating that here, but the TL;DR is 73k miles, two previous owners both older women, first owner bought and maintained the car at Mini of Camarillo where she traded it in in 2017 which is when my coworker and his mom bought it (same day the PO traded it). Lots of work was done between then and now to keep it well maintained and running smoothly.
Overall it looks great, and drives awesome. It's a 21 year old car, so there are a few areas that show some wear:
Chrome trim around the whole car has a little bit of peeling. I'm not terribly worried about this. Maybe something to consider addressing and cleaning up one day, but for now
Driver's side door pocket has a few little scuffs that my coworker thinks is from the seatbelt hitting it. Again, not something that I'm terribly worried about, but may address one day.
Seats are leather and, as expected, showing some wear after 21 years.. Really not too bad though.
Driver's seat:
Passenger's seat:
The e-brake cover is also a little worn:
Steering wheel has a few minor blemishes as well:
Outside of those, there are a few things I'd like to address..
The rear sunroof seal has this tear in it, and with our rain up here, probably a good idea to get that ripped out and replaced:
A few little chips in the grille, but my coworker has a replacement grille already. It's at his sister's house in California, and she will be shipping it up to me. You can see a little rust on the fog light brackets as well, there are stainless steel aftermarket ones available so I'll replace these with those.
Engine bay could use a wipe down, but that's not an area I'm too anal about myself:
Good things.. one of the big concerns on Mini forums is these strut towers are a super thin sheet metal and know to "mushroom" and deform if you hit a big pothole or anything like that. There are some reinforcement options, which I'll buy and install, but as of now the strut towers both look great and no deformities found:
Happy to provide any further details and pictures!
This thing is a blast to drive.. had 164 miles to get home so got a good feel for it at various speeds. Most of that of course was on the open highway where while averaging 75mph I averaged (onboard calc.) 30.5mph for that 164 mile drive. Pretty decent. The shifter is great. I was expecting a soft, mushy shifter, but was pleasantly surprised to feel a nice mechanical locking into place for each gear. It feels similar to how my diesel geek shifter in my MKVI felt. I went into this expecting to want to buy a short shift kit just to firm up the feel, but I think I can happily row this thing's gears in stock form for years to come. This is my first car with a supercharger, and that little whine you get out of it is awesome. Adds to the experience 100%. Coworker confirmed the crank pulley was not replaced while in their ownership, I'm not sure if the PO ever did, so that may be something to replace as a safeguard at some point. For being a little 1.6L engine, this thing sounds far better than it should. A shockingly deep rumble that also elicits a grin every time I get on it.
While I'd easily score this thing a 4.5/7 right now, there are a few things I'd like to do to it..
Short term:
Dip stick replacement... BMW/Mini put a fiberglass dipstick in these. The dipstick tube has two bends, so that stick is known to shatter and splinter off over time. I've found a few flexible metal ones that are designed to replace it, so that's some cheap insurance.
Fog light brackets as mentioned above... Cheap replacement to clean up the look.
Strut tower braces... CravenSpeed is local here in Portland and they make braces that go under the tower and sit between the strut and the sheet metal to absorb those impacts. I'll grab a set of those, and they also make additional braces that go on top of the tower.. functionally those won't do as much as the under tower ones, but they look neat and aren't terribly expensive, so why not.
Sunroof gasket/seal... Got rained on pretty heavily on the drive home, and while this thing doesn't leak at all, it just makes sense to replace that and keep it leak and rust free.
Headunit... I'd like to add a more modern headunit, possibly one with carplay (found a few single DIN carplay units) and bluetooth. There is a place in the ceiling for a microphone if you have bluetooth; I'm not sure if I'd need to route something up there, or if BT enabled headunits have their own built in mics or use your phone's mic or what, but I'll look into all of that.
Side markers... you can see in the pics that the amber covers on both side markers are missing. Coworker gave me some LED lights/covers to drop in, but when I popped the existing bulb out the connector is different than what he gave me, so I need to look if there's an adapter that's needed which I'm assuming there is and it has a built in resistor so the LED light doesn't throw a bulb-out code.
Intermediate:
Steering wheel... this one isn't in terrible shape, but I don't mind spending a little cash on the one part of the car that I touch the entire time I'm driving. There is a three spoke option that has the audio controls on the front. I'll need to do some research on if it's compatible with this car, and if so, if it would also be compatible with whatever headunit I end up with. If not, I can find these two spoke wheels readily as well.
Crank pulley... I believe this is the stock one, so replacing it and the belt just makes sense. With as much fun as this car already is, I don't see needing any additional power, but when I do replace the pulley, I'll consider doing a 15% reduction to get a little more oomph from the supercharger.
Long term:
Cosmetic stuff... chrome trim, e-brake cover, driver's side door pocket.. small things that I'm really not worried about, but would just clean up the overall appearance and make this thing look nearly new.
Wheels... Some lightweight wheels would be a fun upgrade, and a nice way to get some color in the exterior. Definitely not something I need, but you all know how that itch to make a car your own feels and how good it feels to scratch it. I'd consider going down to a 16" as well to lose more unsprung weight, but even a lightweight 17" in the stock size would make a difference as these are 25.1lbs each.
I thought I'd need to tint the windows, but those were done with a nice ceramic tint after coworker's mom took ownership. It's not too dark either. I used to go 5% all the way around like a hoodlum, but was planning on the street legal 35% up front and in the rear on this. I imagine that that's what she put on there.
but these sound so cool with the supercharger. Amir has much available 
for some 5/7 content out of this thing!
thanks dude.
Definitely more likely to do this than a $1400 BROla