New Mini facelift announced

[awright101]

I see that Mini have revamped their hatch back models to include the union flag on the tail lights. I can’t decide if they are a good thing or bad. Price increase as well

I was going to place an order today but will wait and see how much the new one is before commiting to one. Looks like a £1000 more but may have a few more extras

[W44NNE]

£1k is quite a jump but if you get more standard kit, I guess it makes little difference anyway. The Union Jack lights suit the brand but could definitely be seen as a bit tacky. No doubt we'll see more and more cars with customised lights in the future though, as all the fancy lights out there seem to be produced by one or two companies, so obviously they've just created new technology for things like this.

My previous gen MINIs were terrible on reliability (R56 etc) so hopefully the later generation, and the 2018 are better in that dept.

[awright101]

Yes, I’d heard that about the previous generation. The F56 seems to be a bit more solid

[mowflow]

Its not so much the full generations r56 that had reliability issues. The cooper s was the problem. Basically that engine was a lemon. I think they managed to half fix it around 2010.

The earlier r53 with the supercharger was a great wee car. The f56 had a few issues at first but I think they are now resolved. Its a good little (big) car. Cooper s is actually better than the JCW with the f56 by most accounts.

I quite fancy getting one next. Union jack lights would put me off. Sad as it is it has quite negative connotations up here in the West of Scotland.

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[PipPip]

From 2010 the Cooper S R56/55 got a new engine - the N18 rather than the N14 that had a lot of issues including major timing belt problems. Our R55 Cooper S is a 2011 and has never had a single issue of any description. Still runs like new and I believe our experience is not that unusual - the N18 is regarded as a solid engine. To replace ours, which has all the optional extras, with the same spec new Mini would cost well over £30k. Very expensive little cars now!

[mowflow]

When you get to £30k you're up in the range of bigger 300bhp+ hatches and from looking at the finance on the f56 the expected GFV is under 10k at 4 years old making it expensive no matter how you pay for it. I have seen the odd decent lease deal over the last year but the trouble is standard spec is low and speccing up a lease never makes financial sense. Perhaps this facelift will bring standard spec up to an acceptable level.

On the other hand. The post 2010 r56s look a good used buy. Prices are very decent probably due to the poor reputation of earlier cars.

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[gex23]

My R56 factory JCW (2013 run out with the N18 lump, bigger turbo, reworked head and JCW exhaust) is a fantastic all round car. Have owned it 10 months now and it's done everything for me.

Sounds pretty decent for a 1.6 lump, a few nice pops and bangs in sports mode, gets a bit of attention too.

My gripes really aren't many but include :

- Shocking boot space
- Niggles with the alarm in cold weather
- The AWFUL run flats (though will swap out for Mich PSS non runflats)
- Interior rattles and roadnoise
- Interior build quality (better than my previous RenaultSports but a world away from my TT-RS and E85 Z4)

I'm torn between waiting for a new generation F56 GP production car, 2015 Civic Type R or an E89 35is (with the 3 litre twin turbo lump) as my next purchase...

[higham5]

I was in a Mini garage 10 days ago. I wouldn’t be concerned on the £1000 uplift as they have £1500 deposit contribution schemes running on PCP. The tricky bit will be March release, since its the end of the quarter and in some cases year end for the garage.
There are tasy incentives for the dealers to maximise sales in the last week of the quarter, so you might be able to score a good deal.

I hope the above theory works as Im looking to get a deal on an MX5 RF

Steve

[adrianw]

Bought the wife a Dec 2016 JCW210 from this very forum, great little car, a bit soft but great fun, misbehaving is a bit addictive. its a BMW inside.

[RaulGonzalez]

I hope the build quality has improved, my partners 2014 F55 (5dr Hatch) is falling to bits after 3 years !

The rear heated window is the latest failure and now as the car is just out of warranty (7 weeks), the dealer want me to pay for an inspection and say Mini may contribute to a new rear screen but no guarantee. Mini not interested at this point either. I've never had a car with a failed rear screen even at 10 years old !

It was £27k new so not cheap for a small hatchback.... They call it a premium product, not in my experience, although maybe I got a Friday afternoon car...

I definitely won't be buying another ! Although we won't be trading it in for a while as its worth about £10k in PX after 3 years!

[awright101]

Yes, it's the depreciation that puts me off to an extent. The extras that are needed don't add.much to the 2nd hand value. An RS (ford) would be a better bet in that regard with much better residues.

[adrianw]

Yes, it's the depreciation that puts me off to an extent. The extras that are needed don't add.much to the 2nd hand value. An RS (ford) would be a better bet in that regard with much better residues.

We looked at the RS believing residuals were strong and found that Ford were actually discounting pre reg cars, Black + black with 19s 6 months old had dropped 10k, scared me off, worse was at the time I could get a car on car wow from a main dealer cheaper than I could used second hand.

A close friend was selling one, he thought he was offering me a great deal at £27k with 2000 miles on it, he decided to keep it when I could buy pre reg for less

[awright101]

Blimey, I hadn't seen any pre reg ones for those prices