[speedx3]

I've test drove both the Copper and the Cooper S, and I've decided I'll get the S

And now's the quesiton, to buy the demo or not. I know how we abuse the baby when we test drove the car, everyone does, especially the S. However the salesman said there will be no discount on the 03 model. The only 02 models left in EB with a sport-package is a demo with 8950 km on it, and they quoted me $28500CAD (go to www.xe.com for currency conversion). It's $3550CAD off the MSRP. With the stupid 7.5%PST and 7%GST, i can safe $4064.75 in my pocket.

I know there will be no proper "run-in" for the car and 8950km means there's good deal of wear on the break pads and tires, and probably on the clutch.

If you were in my shoes, how would u decided?
Please help, i'm really confused............

Thanx for reading my post.

[Cape Cod MINI]

Quote:

Originally posted by speedx3

If you were in my shoes, how would u decided?

No, no, no. Keep saying this until it becomes your mantra.
This car has been driven like it was stolen since day 1. People who haven't driven a standard shift in 15 years test drove this car. Guys like me who wanted to see it's performance capabilities thrashed it when it had three or four hundred miles on the clock. More people have played with the seat mechanisms and gotten them stuck or jammed than you could ever imagine possible. I could go on but I think you are getting the idea.
www.minicooperonline.com had a thread a while back with the exact same situation. Check it out and you'll see the advice was 100% against it.

[BillO]

But my little beauty only had 100 Mi. on the speedo.
I have seen folks come home with new vehicles with as many miles, so I guess I lucked out.

BillO

[Humourl3ss]

I'd never buy a demo, mostly for the reasons Cap Cod already listed. A demo might be fine for a Corolla or a Civic, but a MINI?

Bear in mind that the 8950km represents the equivalent of about 6 months (give or take) of wear, tear, and even outright abuse on the car by potential customers, techies and salesmen. You'll be replacing the tires, oil, brake pads, wipers, and who knows what else that much sooner.

I think you need to ask yourself this: is a new car worth an extra $67/mo in cost (amortized over five years, plus interest)? Will your savings be eaten up down the road by increased running costs? That's a decision you need to make.

By the way, that "stupid" GST And PST pays for a lot of wonderful things, like roads and road maintenance to drive your MINI on. Don't get too bothered by it.

-CW

[Mike & Donna in Ca.]

Hum - a couple of things come to mind here.

If you buy a demo, you WILL NOT receive any goodies in the mail from MINIUSA - because as soon as the dealership puts the car into demo status - it's considered a used car

So if that is not important to you (the goodies are so cool) - then IF and ONLY if the demo as very LOW mileage - it would be a consideration

Demos tend to be driven like rental cars - nobody cares about them - they just drive the crap out of them....just my 2 cents

Donna

[brgtr3]

Don't buy a demo... I might have driven it!

When I test drive, I push the car as much as possible. During my test, I hit a local clover leaf and went fully around it twice to see just how fast I could get her going. I also do several quick stops, along with squeeling tires to test acceleration.

What's a speed bump?

I guess the same holds true for rental cars. There's nothing more fun than beating the holy crap out of those things!

[Tonyt3]

Don't buy a Demo.... when I took the local demo out for a test drive, I got all four wheels off the ground! (at once, we went flying!!) The saleslady nearly passed out.... big thump on touch down, I think her head hit the roof...



Wouldn't want to do that in my car!!

[Cape Cod MINI]

Quote:

Originally posted by Tony*t3
Don't buy a Demo.... when I took the local demo out for a test drive, I got all four wheels off the ground! (at once, we went flying!!) The saleslady nearly passed out.... big thump on touch down, I think her head hit the roof...

brgtr3: "Don't buy a demo... I might have driven it!"

Good stories!
After my first MCS test drive my wife said "Steve, you misbehaved terribly!" My answer was, I have to test it like I'll drive it, and besides the MINI sales rep never said a word.

[notcmartin]

All I will say is every test drive I have taken has been balls out, drive it like you stole it style. I did wait until the motor was warm until I got on it, but does everyone? Even so, I can tell you the rev limiter works very well, on a car with less than 100 miles by the way. My local dealer sells demo's at msrp, I cant believe they sell them, but they do.

[stryder]

I took my first test drive on a car with something like 150 miles, pulled out the dealership w/ a cold engine, and floored it. The salesman didn't even blink. I get the feeling I wasn't the first person to do this. Realize the average test drive's not more then 15 minutes. That's an insane number of people beating the living daylights out of that car if it has such high milage.

[timlowden771]

I am in the motortrade and there are good and bad points to buying a demo. The good point is that they are always good value for money becasue they are always quite new and are always spec'd right up. It is a know fact that demos do get a bit of a hard life (I should know I have got one outside my house as we speak!!) but we have found that a car that has been driven quite hard at the start always perform better than cars that have just been driven with kitten gloves. Also new cars can stand a bit of hard driving, they are deisgned to be able to take it. At the end of the day if any engine damage has been done it won't show up for a good few years and even if it does show up in the first three years it will be covered.Another point is that if you are going to have any problems you are more likely to get them when the car is beand new, with demos all these problems are fixed asap becasue we can't demo broken cars, it never goes down very well!! Also if you are worried about things like tyres and brakes wearing out earlier, with the momey you have saved you can replace them,(at the end of the day thats why they are cheaper)

[KlausR]

I wouldn´t buy a demo car. The car manufacturers and dealers keep telling us that breaking in, regular oil changes and warming up the engine before hitting the limiter is not so important anymore with new cars.
But there are still engine parts rotating really fast and there are still bearings beeing smashed really hard by pistons and shafts. Remember the Cooper S engine produces over 100 bhp per litre displacement and reaches nearly 7000 rpm. Stroke and rev level result in piston speeds that were hardly reached by real sports engines 20 years ago.

Of course there is a warranty and there are very hard tests being conducted with the cars before they go on sale, but personally, I wouldn´t feel comfortable remembering how the car was broken in.

Klaus

[AidenL]

Don't buy it........

[CUTiger3]

Quote:

Originally posted by brgtr3
Don't buy a demo... I might have driven it!

When I test drive, I push the car as much as possible. During my test, I hit a local clover leaf and went fully around it twice to see just how fast I could get her going. I also do several quick stops, along with squeeling tires to test acceleration.

What's a speed bump?

I guess the same holds true for rental cars. There's nothing more fun than beating the holy crap out of those things!

So very true

[MINI in DALLAS]

I am new to this posting thing, but I just felt like this story had to be shared.

I drove an MCS demo and loved it. I then decided to place an order for a new MCS of my very own. Toward the end of the process I was told that my order had been bumped from the order. I was upset to say the least….but it gets worse. The reason I got bumped was because someone had flown over the railroad tracks in the test course at about 90mph and deployed the airbags. Because the demo was wrecked and had to be shipped out for repairs, the car I was trying to order had to be used for the new demo. The worst part is that they told me that once their wrecked demo was fixed, I could by the new demo that I had originally wanted. I was appalled at the offer!

How do you know that the demo you are looking to purchase has not already been destroyed once or twice? Do you really want to take that chance?

[MINI in DALLAS]

I am new to this posting thing, but I just felt like this story had to be shared.

I drove an MCS demo and loved it. I then decided to place an order for a new MCS of my very own. Toward the end of the process I was told that my order had been bumped from the order. I was upset to say the least….but it gets worse. The reason I got bumped was because someone had flown over the railroad tracks in the test course at about 90mph and deployed the airbags. Because the demo was wrecked and had to be shipped out for repairs, the car I was trying to order had to be used for the new demo. The worst part is that they told me that once their wrecked demo was fixed, I could by the new demo that I had originally wanted. I was appalled at the offer!

How do you know that the demo you are looking to purchase has not already been destroyed once or twice? Do you really want to take that chance?

[stryder]

Oh yeah, I forgot about that... I was at the Dealer's Body shop a few days ago, someone crunched one of their Demo Cars into the back of another car. They were replacing the Bonnet. I've come to find out Demo's get wrecked pretty often. My brother got a used transmission out of one that someone flipped with a few hundred miles on it. (Not a MINI). Having them get fixed is also reasonable.

its just a Bad Idea.

[bafjohnson]

I went to take a test drive in a Cooper yesterday, and the salesman told me we'd have to go out in one of their used ones because the demonstrator was off the road.

During the course of the test drive I asked him what had happened to it. He told me that after their staff Christmas party - one of the other salesmen had had a little too much to drink, tried to go round a roundabout at 60mph and took the car straight through the middle!

It wasn't a write off!

Anyway, I'm going to be putting in an order for a Cooper tomorrow! I've seen the perfect one in the showroom, blue with a white roof, chilli pack etc. If I sort out payment etc tomorrow I can drive it away on Friday! (It's going to be a company car, so let's hope my boss gets his finger out and signs the cheque!).

I can't wait!

Ben

[McprS]

I was speaking to a BMW dealer a while ago, Not about Cooper S's but the stroy remains the same.

I asked him would he ever buy a demo from his or any one elses garage ?

His reply was not a chance in hell, avoid like the plague, run a mile from it. And he was selling!!!

ITs not worth any discount or any reduction in delivery, in my opinion if you cant wait buy second hand, at least you have a good chance its been properly run in by the owner.

I ran a poll on this some time ago,

http://www.mini2.com/forum/showthrea...threadid=12647

[swamos]

When the MCS was new in Australia, I kept hassling our dealer for a test drive. He was a couple of weeks after everyone else. I found out later that the demo had fallen off the truck when they unloaded it, and caught on one of the truck uprights with the wheel arch. In Aus the dealers have to declare if your new car was damaged in transport. Not for a demo though....

IMHO the main consideration should be how long you are keeping the car for. If you are like me, and intend to keep the car a long time, I don't think it makes sense.

If you are going to flick the car after a few years, then it may be ok. Just don't forget to weigh up the cost of the tyres and mechanical wear, and don't forget that if you are not the first owner of a car, you usually don't get the same money for it. If a car is first registered to a dealer, it screams DEMO to potential purchasers. They may not have the warranty to ease their mind that you have. What you save now you may loose later...

The other thing is, is it cheap enough. In aus demo's are usually only a few K cheaper than a new one. I wouldn't bother if you can stand the wait.