My youngest daughter is looking to buy her own car. She looked at a real clean 2011 turbo car last nite.84k miles
The car ( at least to me ) looked pretty clean. no leaks I could see, nothing tore up on the bottom side. all original paint , at least best I can tell

Ive never even given one a passing glance, but she thinks they're cute and wants something newer and that gets better mileage than her 04 Neon, She has had the neon for almost 3 years and is ready to buy something newer and all her own .

Any one here familiar with these things. Common ailments,? hard to work on ?, are these timing belt or chain ?

We drove it last nite and the car will scoot for sure .

She is pretty conservative and has a reasonable budget .Plans to put a decent down payment on it and finance the rest all on her own . Knowing her ,,,, odds are she will have the thing paid off in a year or 18 months 2 years max

Fairly expensive to repair. My son had one for a couple of years. He enjoyed driving it.

Erick the car guy fixed one up for his son. Did a lot of youtube videos on it. He was really disappointed in the quality of the car after he finished the series and that is putting it lightly.

Seems to me it would be better as a second car it have fun with, rather than a primary car.

A guy I know had one, and I got a couple rides in it.
Rode like a big go-kart, so if a comfy ride matters, maybe not the best choice.
It did scoot along, seemed to handle well.
In spite of looking kinda fragile, he only had 1 problem that I recall, clutch/trans related.
He treated the thing horribly; rarely serviced, never saw it anywhere near clean, ran it 130,000 or so before selling it.

I had a 2010 for 4 years. Great fun when it was not in the shop. Go-cart like handling but not the most reliable car to own.

Didn't the Mini turbo use a smaller version of the 2.5 turbo engine from a Neon/SRT4? If true, that's a plus as far as not needing to tolerate BMW attitude when repairs are necessary.

I've heard less than flattering things about the automatic transmission but can't remember if it was just a CVT version or a conventional one. I think having Cooper S with only 2 pedals defeats the purpose of having a Cooper S in the first place, myself.

Kevin

Thanks for the replies so far.

The dad / mechanic in me is worried about buying something I know nothing about ( was dealer tech for almost 25 years )

I told her I could / would do basic maint. Like I always have But if anything major goes wrong , it could get pricey to have a shop fix it

She will be 20 mid April so ride quality / slash roominess is not a major issue. Her work commute is about 13 miles one way and no interstate on any of it

I feel if she can get maybe 3 or 4 years out of it with no major issues she would be ok. ,,,fingers crossed

And a manual trans is out of the question, she doesnt know how to drive one ,,,or has ZERO interest in learning, believe me Ive tried

i am not in the mechanical side of the shop often. but every time a mini in in for repairs i see the engine and trans has been removed and the tech doesn't have a smile on his face about having to work it.
to repair the trans or replace the clutch require the drive train to be removed.

i do know the body parts are $$$ also. they are a BMW auto and the parts are priced like a expensive BMW.

google mini cooper problems

British build quality engineered by Germans. Why worry?

If she likes little why not look at Fiat? I don't know if they are more or less troublesome than a Mini.

British built, wiring would be a concern.

What about a PT Cruiser?

I've been daily driving this '15 Abarth 500C for about 3 years. Only issue in that time was a broken door handle hinge, $12 and 2 hours to fix it. Otherwise a really, really fun car to drive. Designed in Italy, built in Mexico. I guess there was potential for a lot to go wrong but maybe I just got lucky. Mine is a stick, my brother has one with an automatic and it is actually faster. Has so far been bullet proof and I pound the crap out of it nearly every time I drive it. Wind up the boost, lift to shift, POP!, braaaap! It's absurdly loud and the exhaust is 100% stock. Makes me laugh.
I test drove a Mini but I didn't care for sitting so low, this Fiat has leather dining room chairs for seats. You sit up as if in a standard car or SUV.
I quit driving cars based on what others think (obviously!) At least it's FCA, I guess buying a Fiat frees up more money for them to develop Demons and other cool stuff.

Will have her take a look at some Fiats . The really small one I feel is to small .
It sure looks even smaller than the Mini.

The PT is out of the question, I had one as a flipper car a couple years ago and she HATED it

She would actually prefer a 4 door and the extra interior space that comes with it
Also peace for mind for the wife

Although Im in the same boat, knowing nothing about them

New car or used?

Used, something with decent miles for the age , auto
good on gas .

Thanks, that was some good info . the car she is looking at is a 2011 Turbo car

Bill just let her buy it............dang I remember back when I (we) were young and looking at cars everyone else had an (bad) opinion of the cars (trucks, etc.,) we wanted that had something that attracted us to it. If I would have listened I would have NEVER bought my first car in 1969...a '69 Road Runner or any of the dozens of "bad" choices in life. If she gets talked out of buying what SHE wants than everything that goes wrong with what she is talked into getting instead of the Mini then it's not going to be pretty DAMHIK

(BTW did you really think you were going to get a good review here on a non-Mopar or FCA vehicle )

Mike

German cars were built to be leased, not owned.