There are a lot of valid points raised here and some very interesting ones at that.
Lets see if I can offer my rational for buying the JCW kit.
Right here we go…
When looking at what I’d use the car for (enjoyable road use, commuting to work, etc) I wanted something that I knew would be reliable. At the time of purchase, the JCW kit was still quite new along with all the other tuning companies. I knew that if I was going to be forking out around £21000 on the car (before the JCW kit) I didn’t want an aftermarket tuning touching it. If anything was to go wrong with it, I wanted the ease of popping 10 minutes up the road for my dealer to take a look at it.
As a result, I felt that from all of the motoring press write-ups, that the JCW kit (although slightly more expensive) would be the best way forward. It offered the piece of mind that the kit was of excellent quality, it offered the performance I required and also the refinement.
The next thing I thought about was the resale value of the car. I generally change my cars every 2-3 years so I didn’t want to damage the well-documented fact that Mini’s do not depreciate badly. I felt that a JCW equipped car would offer itself more favourably to potential buyers. Personally I would not even contemplate buying a modified Mini (such as a Digitech, Hartge, GGR, etc) as a second hand car. I certainly wouldn’t pay the additional premium that a JCW would command as a second hand car. However that is just my personal preference.
Another issue was that of retaining the warranty and TLC. I know a lot of dealers honour this regardless, but my dealer wasn’t going to do that. Again after forking out well over £20000 for my car, I didn’t then want to lose the warranty and TLC that I’d paid out for on it. I do a fair bit of commuting so I needed to know that what I had would last, not break down, and had the full support of any replacement parts free of charge under warranty.
I have since added a few aftermarket parts to my car though. A Miltek manifold and a BMP intake (which is now being removed for my new 210 upgrade on Saturday

). My dealer did not have a problem with the manifold and they never actually saw my intake. I consulted JCG about the manifold and they did actually agree that it would pep up the car slightly.
However, although I have in the past considered additional upgrades to my car, I have never “gone through” with them due to the fact that I do not want to do anything that would degrade the performance of my car. JCG didn’t spend hours of testing and tuning for nothing!
As a final point, it does baffle my slightly as to why so many people are negative towards the JCW conversion. I totally respect peoples right of opinion, but a lot of you have insinuated that the JCW is an overpriced piece of kit that doesn’t deliver. Well it ticks all the boxes for me!!
I have driven the Hartge car and yes it was fun, but I found I had to rev it a lot more as the power came in a lot later. Not really what I wanted for a car that I spend most of the time in slower moving traffic. I wanted low to mid-range performance with refinement at the same time.
I have not driven the GGR car, nor Digi-tech, or even the BBR. I’m sure they are great fun, but they just aren’t everything that the JCW car is….an icon.
To be fair all of the conversions have their merits, but in terms of my own driving pleasure, I love the fact that I have an Mini tuned by the people that put the car on the map. I like the way everyone wants to talk to me about it at petrol stations and I simply love the way it drives. For that satisfaction alone, it is fully worth its cost in my eyes and I wouldn’t settle for anything less
