buying used mini advice please

Biketrials08

On that age of Mini (the R53) the One and the Cooper have the same engine, a 1.6 (the later R56 has a 1.4 for the One). The only difference is the engine map applied, de-tuned on the one. I belive there was a gearbox change on the One at some point - I'll have to look it up, wasn't aware this was a weak point. Wouldn't describe them as an ordinary car though. Have a look through mini forums for some back ground on issues for example minitorque.com, and the Chili pack does give air con and is the minimum you want on that car.

rodenal

I've personally never really got on with the mini, nothing particularly wrong with it but like others I just found it to be pretty ordinary and seemingly not worth the money.

You are correct though that if you buy one it should still get you more of your money back come resale than a similarly aged swift etc, so if you're thinking about it longer term then the higher purchase shouldn't matter too much.

Of the two I would probably go for the cooper as long as it has a verifiable history and looks like it should have a better spec.

Alternatives could be: swift as mentioned, yaris (though these are expensive too) or maybe the c1/107/aygo - there's actually a reasonable amount of room in the back of these for kids etc.

emmell

Biketrials08 wrote: »

On that age of Mini (the R53) the One and the Cooper have the same engine, a 1.6 (the later R56 has a 1.4 for the One).

I knew someone would have the proper facts, mine was a '56 plate R56 so I didn't really check on the older mini's.
I didn't like the split wheel arch on the front of R53 model, didn't look right to me.
ML.