Lately I've been looking for a vehicle to complement my work truck. An anti-truck, if you will. I found an R53 for sale locally and want some feedback.
This car is for sale locally. It's fairly rough in person with dirty interior, cigarette burns on the seats, mysterious coolant leak of unknown severity, some noise when you turn the steering wheel that seems to be coming from one of the strut mounts. However, it seems to have some fairly desirable options, namely no sunroof, sport suspension, and sport seats.
I know it isn't an S and in general I don't love FWD, but I like the idea of a, reliable, minimalist daily driver. Would this car be a good candidate for that? Would it be anywhere near competitive against the Fiestas in HS? How easy are they to work on? Roughly what is this car worth on the open market?
If it's a 2010 it's not R53, for starters. That generation has a different engine and that had issues at least at introduction.
I've seen R53 Cooper Ss out here for that sort of money or within a few hundred bucks of that. That might be worth considering.
As much as I like my R53, they are a pain in the behind to work on. Packaging is as bad as the "real" Minis and a whole bunch of jobs are easier accomplished by just pulling the whole drivetrain...
Oh, and servicing and parts prices are on BMW levels. Great aftermarket though.
It is actually a 2005, so it is indeed the R53. I wasn't planning on offering anywhere near the asking price, my guess is it's worth $2500-3000, mostly because it doesn't have that damn sunroof.
Ian F
MegaDork
3/31/18 6:26 a.m.
No, that's an R50. Base Coopers are R50's, the Cooper S is a R53 (2002-2006). Convertibles (Base or S) are R52's (2005-2008). The next generation of cars was based off the R56, which is an entirely different complicated series of codes...
That is REALLY strong money for a stripped, few option R50 with over 100K miles. Looking at it, I'd swear the only options are the rear fog light and maybe sport suspension since those aren't standard R50 wheels. I agree with your pricing estimates. The lack of cruise-control would be a deal breaker for me. I spend too much time on the highway.
Not having a sunroof adds value to many, since it can be a real source of headaches as these cars age (leaks and rattles). I would (and did) pay more for a non-sunroof car vs. the multitude of sunroof equipped cars I saw.
Amusingly, the color combo is the same as my car: Astro Black (which looks very blue under certain light) with a silver roof.
Ease of service will depend on what you need to do. Suspension is fairly straight forward and can be done easily with jack-stands. Exhaust as well. Engine work can be a bit tougher as the engine packaging is tight, but most modern FWD cars are these days. Fortunately, there is a healthy DIY community for these cars so finding help isn't hard. Don't buy a Cooper hoping to mod the engine to get S-levels of power. The engine does not take turbos well, so if that is your hope then just get an S.
Reliability is a crap-shoot with these cars. On the plus side, a later R50/53 "fixed" many of the issues of the earlier cars, but it's still a European car. Things happen...
