One of the more recent small design changes that MINI has recently released is a new cowl vent design (found behind the bonnet and in front of the wipers). The reason for this is that MINI found that the foam material underneath the octagon shaped plastic will eventually disintegrate after a couple years of use.

I had been following the progress of the slow destruction of the vent on my own early 2002 MINI for about a year now. However when it got to the point that the left side was almost completely gone, I thought it was time to act.

After showing this to my MINI service tech, I was informed that “they are replacing vents on '02 and '03 cars, no questions asked, when they show sign of obvious wear”. It wasn't clear if “they” was MINIUSA or my local dealer, but I was told it's getting to be more common. I suppose I should take some sort of pride in knowing that, according to the tech, mine was by far the worst they had ever witnessed.

The new piece can be seen on all 2004 MINIs. It still has the same octagon-patterned plastic cover, but underneath, instead of foam, there are black plastic vents (seen in this recent gbmini.net article). I believe the entire vent has gone from two parts to a single piece of plastic.