40k S decided to keep it. Its off warranty, what now.

[zeroman]

Hi.. I'm Brand new to this forum..
Anyway..
I bought a mini cooper S for my wife in 2003 (early). Special ordered it and everything. Now its up to 45k miles.. and out of warranty.
Ive never had reason to work on it. Its been trouble free and warranted up till now.
I do all my own work on all my other cars, the mini is comming in the garage for maintenance now.. brake inspection, bearing inspection.. bushings and the like...

Now that its reaching middle age... I was wondering:

-What are common failures on the car I should watch out for, inspect for or just upgrade now?
-What are common upgrades people look to do?... any utillitarian/performance upgrades, not appearance. (i put coilovers on MY other sports cars for example)

My wife doesn't "need" any sport add ons, but she might get a kick out of them.

I'm a little worried. I put the car up for a fair price in a market that LOVES minis... no one called.
Hoping its the 08 model putting people off to an 03 and not some horrible taboo.

.. thanks.

[Root Ginger]

Common failures that I can think of are power steering pump, wiper motor and wheel bearings. I don't think there's anything that need a pre emptive strike though just wait for them to wear out. The supercharger belt is worth changing early though.

As for performance. The best bang for buck is a reduction pulley for the supercharger. Extra boost, extra power!

[zeroman]

Cool.. fairly well put together then...

... several of my non mini sprots car friends are dead set against pulley changes like that.

Claim that "its made to run in a certain range.. don't eff with it." They're not bench racers either. They are honest to goodness car enthusiasts with self built race cars.

So the mini does well with the underdrive pulley? Doesn't add enough power to need clutch and axle shafts etc eh? I was thinking of putting on a coilover suspension. maybe one of the KW inox variants. Power too is nice.

Thanks.