MCS JCW 03, need to find tuning kit history!

[Nickyp]

Hi guys,

I'm new here and have just bought a 53 plate Cooper S which has been fitted with the JCW tuning kit (pick it up on saturday, can't wait!!!).

Between now and then though, I've got the somewhat arduous task of sorting out the insurance for it. Being a 22 year old student, I'm not expecting it to be cheap, but through running some quotes on Admiral, I got £630 for a standard MCS and then £740 for the factory built JCW which as a pleasant surprise. Having a father in insurance though, I know how particular some insurance companies can be and when I spoke to Admiral over the phone, they were very hesitant to agree to anything unless they knew exactly what had happened to the car. Now begins the hunt to find out when the kit was fitted as unfortunately the original certificate was not included in the paperwork. Does anyone have any idea about how I may go about doing this? (I have the tuning kit number from the plate on the engine). Also, as a relative new comer to Mini's, from what I've read, the JCW tuning kit can only be fully fitted completely, i.e. not just individual parts, and it can also only be fitted by an approved Mini/BMW dealer, is this the case?

Anyway, that's my rambling over, any help would be much appreciated no matter how relevant/irrelevant it may seem!

Nick

[Nickyp]

PS: I wasn't totally sure this was the right place to post this, so if there is a more appropriate topic please don't hesitate to move it!

[cperks]

Phone BMW customer services - they will tell you every garage the car has been to, you then need to phone the garages. If your lucky you'll find the garage. Otherwise I think it will be diy from eBay bits. Recently looked at three jcw's but couldn't prove the provenance, so I gave up and bought a standard S instead.

[Caveman]

There was both a 200 bhp and 210 bhp JCW Kit for the 1st Gen MCS ...

1st Gen MCS JCW Tuning Kits and Factory Models - The MINI Wiki

If the kit was dealer fit any dealer, using the VIN, should be able to provide history.

[cperks]

Caveman, wasn't the case for me. You have to phone every dealer the car has been to, each dealer only retains data for cars that have visited - the service system isn't linked between dealers.
BMW know which dealers the car has been to. Stupid, I know, but that's the way, I was told, it works.

[The Nun]

Hopefully you should have a full service history handbook all dealer stamped to assist you?

[Nickyp]

Yeah, I've got in touch with the specification department and they let me know where it's been serviced. Spoke to someone at Vines of Gatwick (only place it was serviced between 2004 and 2008, car was registered september 2009) but they said they didn't have any record of the JCW kit being fitted. Mind you, the guy I spoke to didn't really seem like he had much of a clue so might ring back tomorrow and hope to speak to someone else.

There is a service book, but don't have it yet as I'm not picking up the car until Saturday, will definitely read through to see if I can find anymore info. You would have though with the tuning kit serial number there would be some way of tracing it back through BMW to at least when it was bought???

[cperks]

Quote: Originally Posted by The Nun (original)

Hopefully you should have a full service history handbook all dealer stamped to assist you?

The problem is the kit wouldn't necessarily have been installed by whoever has serviced the car. It's a nightmare to find out and unfortunately the stickers under the bonnet are available from Ebay.

[ihughes]

Hi Nick
Welcome to the 'Works' (assuming you got the car on Saturday)?

I recently purchased a Sept 2003 MCS JCW's but luckily it came with the original John Cooper Certificates (there should be one for the 'kit' from John Cooper Garages & one from the BMW Dealer who installed it).

The standard kit was for 210bhp.

However, mine has the 225bhp upgrade which was fitted after the original 210kit and this was installed at John Cooper Garages themselves.

So, the engine plate says the car has kit No. 27 (which it does, but its a 225bhp kit) and the orginal certificates are for the 210 kit No. 3147.

If the engine plate is authentic (not bought on ebay) and it is a fairly high No. then it's most likely that you have a 210bhp kit installed.

The paperwork you have got with the car (especially the service book, or TLC voucher book) should give you the name of the original supplying dealer. If you give them a call they should be able to confirm from their records if they fitted the kit either upon delivery or a little while later.

Any BMW dealer ought to be able to give you the details of any BMW service history that has been logged within the BMW UK network irrespective of if they have carried out the work......yes, their service systems do talk to each other as far as I am aware. When I was looking at cars before making my purchase at non-BMW used car dealers, they were all able to give their local BMW dealer contact a call and get the service history for the car they had for sale.

Now for the tricky bit.......how do you tell if your car has a proper authentic JCW kit fitted? Well, most were fitted from new or within the first year, so the BMW dealer network should be able to tell you. Also many were fitted with the JCW exhaust system, air intake box, suspension, brakes and interior carbon trim or JCW seats. The more (expensive) kit it has got on it the more likely it is to be authentic in my opinion, but still no guarantee of course!

Alternatively, if you take the car to a MINI Tuning specialist they will probably be able to check it over and give you an opinion. If you live in the South of England I'd recommend Tony Franks of Mini Motorsport Centre:

Mini Motorsport Centre
Unit 12
Western Road Garage
Western Road
Shoreham by Sea
West Sussex
BN43 5WD
01273 446666
tony@minimotorsportcentre.com

Tony is ex Chief Engineer at John Cooper Garages and was involved in the original development of the tuning kit for BMW. It turned out that he had serviced my car at some time and also fitted the 225bhp kit and Challenge Cup specification brakes that my JCW's has fitted.

Hope you get the reassurance that you need that you have got a 'good un' and that you are thoroughly enjoying your first few days of ownership! Keep an eye out for those speed cameras.....even with 'just' 210bhp it should be going from 0 to OMG ever so easily!