Mini Cooper S (R53) | Shed of the Week
The old ones are the best, no?
In 1995 Autocar magazine named the original Mini as its Car of the Century. Under BMC, British Leyland and Rover, that car ran from 1959, when the windows slid back and forth rather than up and down and the doors were opened by lengths of string, to 2000, when Lulu drove the last one off the Longbridge line. We don’t know if she carried on driving it home, and if so if she ever paid for it. One for the investigative TV programme makers there perhaps.
Anyway, the love that little car generated worldwide meant that the 2001-on BMW Mini, or MINI to give it its correct shouty name, was always going to have to run a gauntlet of negative comment. Some of it was justified. Early opinions of the new MINI tended to be a mix of fulminating praise and exasperation at some of the frankly weird teething troubles, one of which (Shed dimly remembers) was something to do with the headlamps blowing up and the doors falling off when you turned the steering, or something like that.
The car you are hopefully looking at here is an R53 (Mk 1) Cooper S registered in June 2006. That means it has the Chrysler/BMW-designed, Brazilian-built Tritec motor rather than the later Prince engine. You might see this as good news because the direct-injected VANOS-equipped Prince lump (shared with PSA Peugeot Citroen and built at BMW’s Warwickshire plant) earned itself a pretty patchy reputation for reliability, to put it mildly. The iron-blocked Tritec was relatively reliable as long as you stuck to the service plan and only used decent oil.
Tritec R53s from the 2005 and 2006 model years are regarded by many as being among the most reliable MINIs ever, but no doubt there’ll be some argy-bargy on the forum about the relative merits of Prince versus Tritec. Shed is happy for you to have that discussion as long as you don’t make too much noise because he needs his beauty sleep you know.
The other good thing about the first-gen MINI Cooper S of course was that it was supercharged. That was a hell of a big deal at the time. It hoisted the output of the 1.6-litre engine up to 168hp at 6,000rpm along with a handy 162lb ft of torque from 4,000rpm. Running through a 6-speed Getrag manual the S did the 0-62mph in 7.2 seconds and went on to 138mph. It sounded pretty good too, especially with a cold air intake fitted. For the performance, the official combined fuel consumption of around 33mpg was more than decent.
There were shortcomings, some of which were to do with it being short. There was next to no room in the back and the ride quality on runflat tyres was only slightly better than that of a horse-drawn beer dray. Still, the handling and grip were on point, and our Matt thinks that the ones with the Chili pack might have had an LSD thrown in. Shed’s not so sure about that but if it were true that would make this car a cool track project.
The trouble is, Shed has never been very good at working out what pack a MINI might have and what might be in that pack. He thinks a Chili R53 might have had xenon lights, manual air con, an alarm, 17-inch 5-star Bullet alloys, a leather steering wheel and half-leather seating, all of which this car seems like it might possess, but other than that he’s lost. Annoyingly, buyers like to add stuff like MSFWs (multi-function steering wheels) or indeed LSDs to their packs, muddling up the specs and ruining Shed’s peace, so now he prefers to leave this sort of thing to the geeks. The dealer’s ad doesn’t help us because much of their description either contradicts itself or is, well, gibberish.
The important part of their spiel is the bit that says all their cars are sold with a six-month warranty. With luck, you won’t need to claim on that because this car looks straight and clean. There’s a hint of scabbiness on one wheel and one door mirror has lost some of its paint. Both quirks are openly shown in the pics. Last November’s MOT had light advisories for low-tread rear tyres, a non-excessive oil leak and a rusty front spring. The mileage is 93,000 and the price is £1,795.
Returning to warranties, Shed has often wondered about inventing and then selling marriage warranties. The idea is that with one of those in your hand, If something goes wrong with your marriage you can claim against it. Shed reckons that with him as the sole judge of what constitutes 'going wrong' he’d make an absolute fortune because most peoples’ going wrong would be the same as, or better than, one of his perfectly normal days. Almost all warranty claims would therefore be instantly rejected, maximising Shed’s profit. The business might only last for a year as the amount of repeat custom would probably be low to non-existent, but by then he’d be living life high on the hog under an assumed name with the recently Horizon-compensated postmistress, in a country with a relaxed tax structure and no UK extradition agreement.
Great little shed, good to see another smaller car as opposed to the large diesels that usually frequent this article.
Good to hear the post mistress has been compensated, however is there a risk this will broaden her horizon away from shed?
This one looks ok but as it approaches 100k will need a fair bit of work. If you can do it yourself, which if you are relatively handy is straightforward it won’t be too expensive. If you have to pay a specialist it will get pricey.
All the common faults are well documented and there is a ton of info on the forums. Also some very good YouTube channels detailing fixes. Mod Mini probably the best.
The ride is shocking on 17” wheels and run flats. I changed mine to 16” and quality non run flat big profile tyres. Improved things a lot and ride now merely terrible but no longer medieval.
MPG isn’t great for a small car and I very rarely get better than 25mpg. Doesn’t bother me and the character of the car encourages you to drive it like a hooligan.
No plans to sell mine as I like it too much. I even bought a (non S) convertible for summer fun.
It's a great car, fast and nimble. The best conversion was fitting the Sparco Milano sports seats. It literally transformed the car.
Im now the proud custodian of an R56 JCW. By far a much better car in terms of build and performance.
A little unfair to call the R53 'Shed of the week' though.
Loved it - as others have said, superb handling and the noise encouraged you to drive it like a complete hooligan all the time. Albeit it wasn't really that quick, certainly not by modern standards. Nothing went wrong, save a new fog light resulting from pheasant impact. But it was pretty poor on fuel - 18-22mpg was the norm, maybe pushed to 30mpg on a run. I'm 6'4 and my seat would touch the rear bench, so it wasn't exactly practical. Traded it in for a decent amount after 18 months (I guess the dealers were seeing strong demand early on) and bought an 04 plate Clio 172.
Not quite sure why - although the Clio was also wonderful in its own way...
My father seemed to like the Mini and shortly thereafter acquired a BRG Cooper S with the Works pack, registration M200 WKS. Now that was a lovely car.
I’m a fan of the original MINI have owned three of them, my favourite being by R53 in Indi-blue metallic with a white roof and mirrors. Mike was well spec’d with full leather, CD changer, heated windscreen, xenon’s, cruise, heated seats etc.
It was an absolute hoot to drive and I found the supercharger whine hugely addictive. The fuel consumption was pretty poor though.
I remember being very glad of the AUC warranty though because despite having only cover 14k, in a short space of time it had a new clutch and flywheel, steering rack and track rods and some work to the immobiliser which was causing hot start issues.
If I had better space, I’d love another as a toy.
I had an opportunity to drive one of these back in 2002, and now with hindsight I wish I'd had a go in it. Plus I still haven't driven a car with a supercharger on it either.
A good shed I think.
On the plus side, the engines are strong as an ox if looked after. By now, they're likely running worn rings, valve stem oil seals, tired wear parts all round but everything that goes on these is easily put right by enthusiastic home mechanics and if you can get past that, the stinging tax & crappy fuel consumption, they're still a riot to drive.
I never trusted the Z axle steering at the rear and fast front end. Consequently cornered it like rounding a 50p.
Only lost £1 come selling on mind, such was the demand back then for the car.
Gassing Station | General Gassing | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff