I've started the long journey to redo my fleet of cars and the R53 Cooper S landed itself on the potential list for "fun daily driver". I'm hoping to hear from some people here who have had some experience living with one of these cars to understand some of the finer details. So without further ado let me jump into some questions:
1. How do these cars handle the winter? I'm in the northeast and used to manage in a miata with snow tires and an LSD but admittedly struggled getting out of my hilly neighborhood. How does the R53 hold up in the snow? Do they all have LSD's or is there a specific package I need to seek out to get it?
2. What's the maintenance and common failure points like? I'm looking to unload my 135i andhoping to move into something that's a little less of a headache... or atleast, if it has a problem, it's easily narrowed down to "replace this" and not "well it could be any one of these 14 things..."
3. What's the reliability like? I've heard horror stories but the consensus seems to be that 05-06 Cooper S' arent bad minus a couple common failure points that arent bad to address.
4. How are they to work on? I'm an avid DIY'er and wrenching on cars for 20 years but I don't like to spend all my free time doing it. Any reason to be concerned with a Cooper S?
Okay enough of that, now on to the fun stuff:
5. How do these cars handle/drive for a FWD platform? I swore off FWD for sports cars years ago but everyone seems to say the Cooper S feels like an exception. What's the real story here?
6. What's the driving experience like? I'm looking for something that maybe comes close to my old NA miata for fun-to-drive factor. How is the steering / shifting? The feeling of connection as a driver?
7. What else should I know that I'm not asking?