Anybody had a Mini Cooper?

R

richard100

Member
Had my 2.0i Z4 for 3 years now and love it. Bad news is that my daughter will soon be 17, and I need to trade down to help teach her to drive. I'm thinking of a Cooper as it seems to be a relatively sensible choice between a fun drive for me and her not driving into a wall! Any thoughts out there on whether it's a good choice, or any better ideas?
 
Buy her a £500 second hand Nissan Micra and keep the Zed :)

... on a serious note, cj10jeeper's daughter had a Mini I think, so I guess he would be able to comment on whether it is a good choice or not...
 
I bought a Polo instead, cheaper to insure and much more solid than a Mini and does not have that infamous gearbox issue.
 
Hi Richard,

My wife had a mini cooper before the z4, cracking car tbh, never had any issues with it all (had it from new for 7 years), my daughter tried it but did'nt like it, prefered her C2 for ease of gearchanges and steering. We could not afford to let my daughter have it because of the insurance costs, check it out before you purchase one. We reduced the cost by only having my daughter on the insurance for a limited number of days per year. My advice would be let your daughter try it as well if you can. Great car though, practical, sporty drive cheap to run :thumbsup:
 
Mum got a Mini Graphite One new last year... including uprated suspension & wheels...very impressive little car & does exactly what is says on the tin.

Been 100% reliable, very solid and the grip is something else. What else would you like to know?

photo-2.jpg
 
Don't forget that for a learner, the hard gear change makes the driving not great and to get it in reverse is a different story altogether.

An experience driver can cope with that, but a learner?
 
my girlfriend has a cooper S for sale 53 plate,gray, chill pack, 2 free services left (tlc pack) good price but the insurance might be a bit high for a first car?
 
OK - so I've put 2 daughters in the driving seat taught them to drive (with supplemental lessons from a pro as they know the tests not me) and got them through their tests. Second one in 6 weeks.

Both were equiped with Ford Ka's. They are cheap as chips, low cost to insure (even in their own name), very easy to drive and are liked if you plan on putting the pupil into a test (as opposed to professional tuition).

I would never buy a new driver an expensive car as they WILL crash it or get involved in trouble.

My eldest graduated and we moved to a Cooper S and is about to pick up a second one. She certainly values the learning that the Ka gave her before the power and value of a Mini.

Second one now uses the Ka as a Uni/student car, where all here female mates drive the same.

Just my 2p worth
 
I would agree with some of the above comments, and I have also owned a 2002 Mini Cooper. Terrific car, but not for a learner.
 
My wife has a Mini one automatic, the car is now shared since my daughter passed her test 2 year ago, insurance, I feel is reasonable ,an extra £250 this year. We have had the car for 5 years and it has been great, brakes and tyres has been our only costs .
 
My mini cooper was the only car I made a profit on.Lost a little bit on the cooper S but still much better than any other cars I have had have lost thousands.I put the kids on the cooperS insurance I think they liked driving it But they had 2 seater cars for their first cars.The logic behind this was they could only carry
one other person,.My thinking was that most accidents with young drivers are caused by overloading the car with passengers and burning as much rubber as you can. This was my thinking and it worked for my Two.
 
Some good advice folks, thanks. The idea is for me to own the Cooper but just let her have it occasionally - she'll get some proper tuition as well. Is the gear shift really that hard?
 
It was ok for me, but my wife could not get on with it what so ever and hated it every time we got a Cooper from the dealer during service time.

A (lady) friend who has the convertible tries to avoid situations where she needs to reverse at all ...
 
think i'd go down the root of buying a cheap car for her, keep the zed for yourself
 
pvr said:
A (lady) friend who has the convertible tries to avoid situations where she needs to reverse at all ...
Click to expand...

There is probably quite a large number of ladies who dont reverse, lol
 
Check the insurance on a learner driver on a Cooper before you make any decisions.
It''s in the region of £1000 on a Ka for a girl increasing to £1500 on passing (since they cam be solo & unsupervised).

I bet a Cooper is 50% more
 
My wife had two, one of each pre and post facelift. Post facelift are much better built I think. I loved them both: great fun, go round corners for fun, reliable, and not sore on the juice. Other than potentially high insurance then I'd say go for it!
 
My girlfriend has a MINI Cooper, her 1st car (she's 22 and has the MINI for 2 years now). She drove it on her first track day (Circuit de Bresse in France) :

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We also went to the Nurburgring last year :

10-09-2010-nurburgring-tf0076_471.jpg



Then she bought a MINI Cooper S JCW GP :

img_6510.jpg



The Cooper (R50) is a fun car.

+
Good looking (from my point of view at least)
The handling is very good, very "sporty" and fun
Many ways to personnalize

-
The engine is very "linear", not demonstrative at all
Brakes are just what you need to drive normally but they will fade out very quickly when driving sportly.
Very firm suspension, it's not comfortable, particularly on bumpy surface
The boot space is ridiculous, as the place for rear passengers.


Hope that helps ;) !
 
Yes but it had a G at the end of the # plate with 10" wheels ....probably not what you meant :rofl:
 
I have one of these at the moment as a courtesy car.....

Overpriced, boring, slow and the fuel economy is not much better than the Z4.

2011, 4k miles - I found the screen price in the back of it £16.3k! It must have been over 20k new for something very ordinary.

Maybe I`m missing the Z4 and feeling a bit resentful!
 
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