Cooper S 3dr Hatchback

Great fun

Loved my little mini from day one.
First things first... they suffer from cam chain tensioner issues. There is no oil light & these little cars love a drink of the black stuff!. When the oil gets low, the tensioner fails because it uses the engine oil to apply pressure to the tensionier through a small orifice.
When i first test drove mine, it had the dreaded cam chain rattle. Luckily the dealer agreed to change it out. But if left unattended, it will destroy your engine & the tensioner will break causing internal engine parts to clash... then its an engine re-build.
Since getting it home, I have had a few other issues with it, namely, auto stop/start not working (sorted out with a new battery - £129)
They all seem to suffer from leaking rocker cover gaskets, but its an easy fix for a home enthusiast. part was £25 and took around 1hr to do.
I also replaced all the discs & pads myself too as I wasn't happy with the look of the old ones. Upgraded to cross drilled and slotted discs.. great braking now.
Weeping turbo oil feed pipe - that expensive to change and cost me about £300 from a local garage.
Also had the a/c compressor replaced as the old one was very very noisy... that was another £600.
However, even with the issues I've had, the car is great fun to drive with a zesty 1.6 turbo engine along with go-cart like handling and precise steering... however, the stupid run-flt tired BMW insist on putting on all of their cars are a nightmare & cause the car to skip around on the road over the smallest stone..
That was all sorted when I replaced all four tires with normal tires. This TOTALLY transformed the car & is now a pleasure to drive.

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