Potentially rare mini died on me

784 Views 8 Replies 5 Participants Last post by Dan_in_WA, 17 d ago

Memitim901

Discussion Starter · 21 d ago

I think I have a rare mini but I'm not too sure and I just want to make sure I'm not getting screwed over. I have a 2014 MINI cooper S paceman with the John Cooper Works package. Has been a great car, we've owned it for about 8 years and it only has 69k miles on it. Yesterday, the turbo had what the mechanic described as a catastrophic oil return failure and started jetting oil all over the road for about 100 yards before the engine threw a rod into the oil pan. I've gotten several estimates to replace the engine coming in at around the $9-12k range which means its no longer worth it for me to keep this car. At first I was just concerned with making sure I was at least going to get something out of it, but now I'm concerned its gonna sit in a junkyard and rot. So I guess I have a couple of questions:
1. Is this car as rare as I think it might be? (less than 100 in the states is the last estimate I was able to get from the MINI dealer)
2. If it is, is it worth going the extra mile to make sure it goes to someone that is going to take care of it instead of scrapping it?
3. What would you do if you were in my situation?

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Memitim901

Discussion Starter · #3 · 20 d ago

Headloq said:
Man, that's unpleasant! Just a thought - have you considered importing a replacement engine from the UK/Europe/Japan?

Pretty sure I'd prefer to get it going again. Then again, what's the real market value like in the US?

If it's to keep then resale value is less of a thing ...

(I know, not much help as a response!)

Paul

Honestly, no I hadn't thought of doing that at all. I'd only looked at the 5 or so engines available on ebay motors to get an estimate on a price. I'm going to reach out to the mini dealership near me to see if they can do a better price and I'll look into what it takes to get one imported as I have no clue how to even start approaching something like that.

As for resale value, I don't think that is really playing into this anymore, firstly because I just can't get a good comparison the only other 2014 paceman JCW we can find is for private sale for $18k right now. Mostly though because after talking about this more with the wife, she just really likes her car and even though I've offered to get her a nicer and newer car she seems pretty hesitant still and asked me to look more into getting it fixed.

I really appreciate the suggestion for importing an engine, I would never have thought to look into that!

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Memitim901

Discussion Starter · #6 · 20 d ago

Rockster said:
If you don't go the replacement engine route then the car is nothing more than what is referred to as a roller. As a roller it is no longer rare. There are many rollers.

Barring an engine transplant the car will be good for nothing more (or less) than being a parts donor to help keep other similar cars on the road.

You can search out a car salvage business that specializes in MINIs and see what it will offer you for the car.

I didn't see any mini specific salvage places anywhere near me (I live in Iowa, nothing is near me haha) but it did let me stumble across salvage auctions in general. I found a place where there are tons of salvage minis for auction that have the same engine and such going for much cheaper than just the engine by itself and seem to be running just fine. I may have to do some more research on how hard it would be to do something like that.

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