2005 BMW Mini Cooper S review from North America

Squeak, rattle, rattle. I guess this is typical, but still annoying to say the least. Fortunately the dealer has been helpful when it came to the dash rattling like crazy.

The dealer was very quick to point out that I had aftermarket wheels on the car, as well as that I had placed lowering springs in it. I understand this and respect this as they don’t want to deal with any problems associated with the springs / shocks, as I have already found out they mentioned to me that the upper housing on one of the shocks was loose, and couldn’t do anything about it because of the lowered springs. That didn’t bother me.

However, I do have a squeal coming from the clutch as it engages into first gear, usually when the car is cold or has sat for more than 2 hours. This is when all the fun began with really poor customer service. So the dealer starts to right away feed me excuses as to why they can't determine the 100% what the problem is, and then they start to attribute the problem to be wear and tear, this sounds funny, especially when the car only had 17,000km's on it.

Next the dealer proceeds to tell me that my large wheels have placed extra strain on the clutch and that that could be causing the problem, again I find this funny as MINI offers 18" wheels.

Finally they tell me that if they were to look at the transmission and clutch and found no fault on it, I would have to pay for the repair. A clutch repair is just under $2000 at BMW, so needless to say I'm furious.

This issue of the clutch squealing I have found to be common with hundreds of other people through out North America, just check out www.mini2.com or www.northamericanmotoring.com, and many people have had the problem fixed and the fault was found due to a prematurely worn throw out bearing.

I ended up sending an email describing my disgust to BMW of Canada, in which they replied that the dealer couldn’t replicate the problem, yet I ended up arguing with both the supervisor and manager about it. So for the last 6 months, I have been led in a circle which hopefully will end soon when I get a hold of someone higher up in BMW.

It's really too bad that I have to deal with this, especially as I bought a NEW car not to deal with this. The problem with MINI is the spinning propeller posh attitude of BMW.

What about the good stuff, every time I get in this car, it puts a smile on my face, it's a quick little car that loves to get tossed into the corners, and the whine of the supercharger begs you to go faster!

The ride may be a little uncomfortable due to the lowered suspension, the 19" wheels and 35 series tire, but that’s a small drawback that goes away as soon as you hit that on ramp to the highway.

Ohh yeah, and don't believe the lovely gas mileage sticker on the car, the Cooper S is horrible on gas, I roughly get 12.5L/100km or roughly 19mpg.