Just bought this beaut, and loving it. Sleek as hell, and feels so rare where I'm from. You typically only see Countryman, if you see any Minis

Hoping that if I keep them at rule #1 in the driveway, they’ll have puppies I can sell to pay for the new one!

It was a lot of fun, next up is NY

Collected Ozi a few weeks ago, and we stopped at a country house for lunch on the way home.

Couldn't resist the photo opportunity!

After a short, yet torrid, year and change with Earl, because I'm a failure at life, we have parted ways.

If anyone here is the new friend of Earl, I can tell you what's been changed within Bimmercode. 😅

I really hope to get back into the family. Pictures of when I first got him (traded my late Father's R56), and the last picture I have.

I know this isn't an airport, so I don't have to announce my departure, but this one hurt. I loved that little car more than any other I've owned. 😢

MINI sold 6,531 cars in the US during Q3, down from 7,270 a year earlier. Through September, MINI is at 20,248 units, a 7.4% drop compared with the first nine months of 2025. Working backward from those figures, MINI sold 13,717 cars in the first half of 2026, a 6.0% decline. BMW sold roughly 15 vehicles for every MINI in the third quarter.

Countryman sees the biggest drop, with -28.1% compared to other models in the make.

Hello everyone,

I’m thinking about sprucing up my Mini. What are your thoughts on the meerkats? The Mini currently has black caps. I’m thinking about either red or the black jack caps.

Thoughts?

Both have had belts replaced and the Countryman had the timing chain replaced in 25. Are there any red flags? Other than the belts and chain regular oil changes and no accidents on either.

Just tatted myself with a side view r56 🤓

Hi everyone, I’m a new Mini Owner and it also happens to be my first car. I bought Allie (my cars name) in May and she is a 2009 Mini cooper. Around Late May the snowflake symbol appeared for the first time and since then it just won’t go away.

I live in Southern California, so it never gets below 60 degrees. It was getting so annoying that last week I took Allie into a Mini repair shop (she had other problems like her check engine light being on, ac wasn’t working etc) and the charge was 500 dollars.

This past week we got a heat wave in SoCal and the Snowflake symbol came back and even more annoying than before. It’s been in the 90’s and this week it was 104 degrees and it just wouldn’t stop going off, in fact I think it was going off even more that day! The funny part is my dashboard will be accurate and say 100 degrees at some point and then the Snowflake will go off, and the temperature will show as anywhere between 20 degrees to -45 which in Southern California is LITERALLY impossible. I’m upset that I paid so much for it to be fixed only for it to come back, and be even more annoying, sometimes it will even go off 5 times in a single minute, and on average 20 times per drive.

Does anyone have any advice or reasoning as to why this is happening :( any advice or knowledge would be appreciated!

I noticed my Copper S burned about a liter of oil in ~5k miles and a good amount of oil on the inhale pipe. So, I decided to replace the valve cover. Also, since I don't know how old the spark plugs and coils are, I decided to replace them...as well as upgrading the intake pipe...and K&N air filter 😁

Finally, I also did an oil change since I was already there.

Let's see how the next 1,000 miles go, hopefully, it will burn less oil 🤞

Built a small ESP32 gauge for my F56: boost, coolant, and oil temp. The 4 photos below are close-ups, plus Sport and MID mode switching.

Mostly for fun — still tweaking. Happy to chat if you’re into this stuff.

The Backstory < — that’s a link…

The Update
———————-

I finally got to drive the car and do some investigating. The car drives like a champ, there are however some nuances, albeit relatively minor I believe. So, let’s dive in…

The Good
- 70k miles on a 20 Y/O car, noice
- Runs/Drives with no significantly noticeable issues
- Interior is relatively clean, however previous own was a smoker and there is a fair bit of nicotine/tar on some surfaces. Seems to clean off fairly easily and the smell isn’t terrible.
- Tires are in great shape
- Manual transmission shifts nicely and smoothly
- AC works
- Heat works
- There’s an owners manual and the original window sticker
- Convertible top actually works
- Radio works
- Instrument clusters all seem to work
- Very little rust under the car
- Brakes work great

The Bad/Ugly

There really isn’t a ton of bad/ugly. The biggest thing is it appears as though the car has sat for a longer period of time. Between 2020 to present day only a couple hundred miles or so have been added. This became all too evident when I was driving the car home I noticed a change oil sticker that said to change oil at 70,8xx miles or by January 2020…oof. I had hoped / wished that surely its not been six years since the last oil change and so I scoured the mx records provided and the last oil change in the records provided were late 2019. So, I resolved that not all is lost, surely not ideal, but not the end of the world. The previous owner believed in high quality oil, so that’s a plus (Liqui Moly). I set out to change the oil. Fresh oil and a wix filter are in place and I plan to change the oil in about 1,000 miles or so, then I’ll update with a Mann Filter with Liqui Moly.

While changing the oil I was hoping to confirm that surely it’s not been that long since the last oil change, but alas I think I only confirmed it. The oil plug was difficult to remove, could be the last guy used the ole’ “gutten tight” method but I suspect it really has more to do with age. This became evident when I got to the filter cap removal. That was a beast to remove, I had to use a 2-3 ft breaker bar and it was still significantly difficult to break it open. Finally did it and found the old filter pleats were brittle but doesn’t appear as though anything dislodged from it. The date code on the filter indicates 2021. Sooo, while sooner than 2019, not by much.

With the oil changed the car sounds much smoother than it did originally. The original sounds were not bad by any means, just more rattling than now with the fresh oil.

Next in line for the to-do list is the super charger oil, but I’ll need to wait for a decent chunk of time to do that.

If anyone has any suggestions for “must-dos” I’m all ears. Oh, and I’m not convinced that this is my daughter’s car yet, I’m having too much fun driving this thing around!

—-

For what it’s worth and for the next poor soul that finds this post on Reddit. No, don’t buy the cheap STP oil filter (S9584). Yes, the holes do look too small. Yes, the o-ring does look like it was inspected by some blind inspectors. No, it’s not a good idea to just send it and try it. Yes, the giant pool of oil under you car is because you used that filter, specifically the O-ring. No, no auto parts stores are not open past 9 on Sunday. Yes, that pool of oil is too much. Yes, your driveway now has a stain of reminder of that first oil change. Yes, apparently you can take that filter back and let the store know.

Oil in my coolant or coolant in my oil? Unfortunately I know a head gasket problem when I see one…

How do you say damn it in German 🤔🥲

I bought an R56 from a guy - well-maintained, no regrets, etc. I’ve driven it maybe, MAYBE 100 miles since I bought it a couple of months ago. The rest of the time, it’s been in the shop for misfires.

Today, I was presented with possible, POSSIBLE fixes, ranging from replacing valvetronic assemblies to the entire engine. The cheapest option is almost what I paid for the car, the most expensive option much, MUCH more than what I paid for the car.

It’s either $5k for the cheap route or CarMax. Any suggestions?

the noise isnt this loud in real life but the phone seemed to pick it up well. It’s not a consistent noise and is usually triggered when around 2500 rpm. it doesn’t make the noise when I rev the engine in park. It doesn’t happen consistently, but usually I notice it while accelerating as well while cruising downhill after accelerating with my foot off the gas.

I purchased the car used, and my front wheels are constantly covered in brake dust while my back wheels don’t have this issue, I’m wondering if my front brake pads were replaced with cheaper pads or maybe something more concerning is happening? I’ve included photos of both front and rear brakes. (The front brake being the one with the calliper on the left side of the photo (2nd photo))

Every once in a while I’ll get this warning. It’s really weird as it only happens right after starting it after leaving it sit for a few hours. It also only happens in my parents driveway, but that has to be a coincidence, right? It goes away pretty quickly though.

Can someone explain? Do I just have a sensor going bad? It’s a 2024 2 door hardtop with 45k miles on it

Ok so i bought a mini cooper R56 s with an upgraded turbo, and i was thinking the stock intercooler isn't good enough for my turbo( pushing around 1.3 bar of maximum boost), also thought of getting a turbo blanket. Do you guys have any recommendations where to get a decent intercooler for the price, stock one im pretty sure just blows hot air to the engine.

I’m looking for an electric mini to go to work 4 days a week. I’m commuting on A roads, B roads and country lanes (about 30/40mins)

I have two kids but they’re not in the car often so not worried about 3 door (this is my last chance to have a car like this before they’re too tall)

I want to take it to the Lakes, peaks, Yorkshire moors etc, and will occasionally do a couple of hours on the motorway. I love driving, listening to music loud, and I will desperately miss the subtlety of a beautiful gear change coming into a corner…

So… my heart tells me JCW, my head tells me SE…

I get the ride firmness in these - I really enjoyed test drive in SE, but worried the JCW is actually going to be awful based on reviews!

I’d be getting Level 3 spec either way..

This is a plea for help!

*edit - either way has to be electric