Cooper S Newbie

[mosschops]

Hello Folks,

My first post so be gentle !

I'm taking delivery of my first Mini Cooper S tomorrow and am really looking forward to it.

The Spec is as follows:

December 06 Mini Cooper S
Dark Silver, roof in body colour
Chilli Pack
Lounge Leather
Remainder of TLC
A few other bits and bobs I can't quite recall
13K miles currently (so just about run in for me)

I've had a chequered car history which include an Audi A3, a TT, BMW 3 Series coupe and my current steed a Porsche Boxster (until tomorrow anyway).

I'm hoping it's going to be a much cheaper car to run than the Boxster as it's cost a small fortune over the 18 months I've had it. I was very impressed with the pickup of the mini and it's handling - just like a go kart.

I've got a couple of questions I've been meaning to ask, so here goes:

I see references the R55 & R56 - as far as I can tell I'm getting a 2nd Gen Cooper S, it's got the 1.6 Turbo engine. What's the difference between an R55 and an R56 ?

Are the servicing interval's fixed mileage or variable ?

Anything else I should look out for when collecting the car tomorrow ?

Thanks,

Jonathan

[KPKalle]

Hi and welcome to MINI2

Judging by the date and the fact your car has a Turbo then it's an R56. R55 is the Clubman.

Servicing intervals are variable depending on how hard or soft you drive the car. The first service for an R56 is at about 25,000 miles give or take. Your on-board computer shows you the countdown to the next service when you turn on the ignition

[mister.t]

Hi and welcome to MINI2 The service intervals are variable - as mentioned above. However, ours (R56 Cooper) is due a service in just 8k miles, so it will have only had 17k miles put through it. This however is solely down to short journeys which require new oil sooner. Happy Mini'ing

[colink24]

Will be interesting to see how you feel the R56 performs compared to the Boxster. Ive heard from a few owners that they felt the R56 outperformed the Boxster standard model?

[mosschops]

Well - I took delivery yesterday, will get some pics up when the wheather improves. It's chucking it down at the moment.

Very pleased with the car itself, not far of the performance of my Boxster - nice to be back in a Turbo Charged car. The fuel economy is much better too.

It's been supplied with the infamous run-flat's - they've got loads of tread on at the moment so I will have to work on that so I can try some normal tyres once I've worn them down.

There are a couple of mild scratches on the car - one just behind the drivers door and another on the lower front bumper. The dealer has agreed to sort these out but I thought it was a bit sloppy of them not to have noticed these.

Couple of things though:

The car has Piano Black interior and the passenger side dash panel has some mild scratches on it - do you think they will buff out or will it be easier/cheaper to replace the panel (I'll be getting the dealer to do this)

Service booklets / TLC - Wasn't happy with how they explained this. Shouldn't every car have a Service book with the stamps in ? Also shouldn't I have some sort of TLC voucher book - they said everything was on the BMW computer so they know what packs and services it has received

[zyo]

I've used meguiars scratch x on mine and they look fine now.