200K Miles in an ’03 R50

Sections: MF Feature | R50 (Coupe) Nov 11th, 2008 47 Comments

It’s official as you can see from the photo. My MINI eclipsed the 200,000 mile mark recently and thought it would be a good time to give you my thoughts about this car since it has more than 10 years worth of normal driving miles on it.

I got my MINI on March 9th, 2003 and hit my first 100K miles on October 7th, 2005. Lots of miles for work, lots for SCMM events and just general motoring.

This 100,000 miles did take a little bit longer, mostly due to the extreme increases in the price of gas. When I bought my MINI, I was paying $1.899 for a gallon of premium in SoCal. We all know the rest of that story. I also drove less for work, which is another reason why it took a bit more than 3 years to hit this 100K versus 2.5 for the last.

I’ve said this here many times before, but the MINI is the best car I have ever owned. Except the alternator going out and getting 1 flat tire, this car has never left me stranded and never not started. I’ve driven this car in pouring rain, searing heat and even snow without a hitch. Never thought I would lose control and have always felt safe, even driving next to 18-wheelers with 60MPH gusts!

The following is a recap of the life of my MINI. Follow the jump!

Where I have been

Thanks to this amazing little car, I have been able to do some pretty cool things, meet almost all of you plus other great people and go to places I’m sure I would have not gone to otherwise.

I have…

Helped to start one of the largest MINI Cooper Clubs in the world, Southern California MINI Maniacs (SCMM)
Started a little podcast called White Roof Radio with Todd and Gabe. Thanks to you, it is one of the most popular automotive podcasts in the world!
Been an editor at Motoringfile.com for more than 2 years
Been the “Official” something at AMVIV, MTTS (covered it twice) and MINI United 2007.
Driven to the Grand Canyon
Driven on the track over 40 hours!
Driven on the Las Vegas Strip with over 200 other MINIs, more roads than I can count with 30 or more

Pretty amazing stuff, all because of the MINI!

Repairs

Since my MINI was built in the first year (11/15/02 to be exact), the first 50k miles were slightly problematic, but covered under warranty. Steering wheel, seats, latches, numerous software updates and a new transmission are on the list of things that were replaced or repaired. In total, my MINI spent over 1 month at the dealer for the first 50K miles. Did I mind? Not even a little bit.

From 50K to 100K everything was exactly perfect except for the A/C pump going out during the hottest summer we have seen in 20 years. It was replaced and now my MINI has a part on it that can turn sub-12 second quarter mile times, should I ever need to do that.

Once I passed 100K, wear and tear started setting in. First thing to be done was a tune-up, which is fairly minor. I was amazed it didn’t need it until 120K miles. After that was the battery at about 145K. Should you need this, I highly recommend going to the dealer. I’ve recently tried a battery that was non OEM and the bracket to hold it in it’s little box wouldn’t fit correctly.

Next up was the power steering pump. And it wasn’t cheap. If you are getting up in miles and think yours might be failing, be sure to have an extra $US1,000 handy for the job.

Following that, I had a control arm break. Scary, but cheap and easy to fix.

Finally, at exactly 200K miles, the alternator decided to give up the ghost. While I was driving in the middle of the California desert. At night. It made for a fun experience.

Wish List

I’ve really not had to do to much to my MINI to make sure everytime I put in the key and turn it, it starts. There are still some things that I really need to get done, hopefully sooner than later.

Complete suspension rebuild, including new upper control arms for the rear, shocks and springs. And all the parts that make the MINI front-drive.
Radiator. It doesn’t really leak, more like a slow steam. Not a concern now, but I want to replace it before it becomes one
Belts and hoses. After installing the alternator, replacing the main belt on my car might be doable, if not terribly time consuming. Hoses shouldn’t be too bad either.
Wiring harness. This is a concern for many reasons. I’m hopeful that getting it replaced will also turn the airbag light off. Pretty sure this one will have to happen at the dealer
Brakes. New rotors and pads this time around. Power slot rotors have lasted me 170K miles, so I’m pretty sure I will use them again.

Overall impressions

There isn’t anything that I don’t like about this car. I can keep up with you in your MCS on the track and get 35MPG on the drive home. I can cruise at 70MPH all day long in comfort. I can suffer in bad traffic or dodge the cell phone using idiots on SoCal freeways with ease.

Besides the cost of dealer service being extraordinarily high in my opinion, this car hasn’t even cost me too much. Sure the repairs I need to do will be a bit spendy, but my car is, essentially, 10 years old (depending on who’s math you use). Most cars that are as old as mine always require something.

Like I mentioned above, Roxy has always started when I turn the key. Always moved when in gear and has done so with more style, flair and fun than any other car I have ever driven. This is a car I hope to keep in my driveway for as long as possible!

Written By: DB

http://www.dcmetrominis.org JustJAY

Congrats. Only 800K to go!
http://miniclub.ie Owen

Great write up, and an enthusiastic glimpse on what life is like as both a car nut, and a MINI master. I’ve worked as a Dealership Manager for 5 years here in Ireland, and fell in love with the cars to the point where I joined my local club, setup a new club (http://miniclub.ie – plug plug), run their website, but also most importantly, I set out on a quest to build the most special R53 I could to keep for the rest of my life. The result has been worth it, and after over a year of building it’s almost complete, and there are times when I think ‘Will I really keep this forever?’, and then I see stories like yours of genuine enthusiasts who fly the flag and motivate me to stick to my guns.

Well done DB, great to see so much fun was had on your part, and Velvet Red is a superb colour to keep!
Jack07734

Congrats to you and Roxy on passing a huge milestone.

Just think, Roxy has traveled the equivalent of 8 times around the world.

The next milestone will be at 240k miles. That is the distance from the earth to the moon. :)

:) Happy Motoring, Jack and Laurie
http://www.dickdavid.com dickdavid

Congratulations, DB!!! Great write up too.

We need to have a Roxy-polooza and get some or your wish list taken care of.
tscheez

You should head east to MOT one year, just to add to the list of places and events you’ve been to.
http://www.lilcoopr.com lilcoopr

Hey DB!! Congrats on the milestone!! You and Roxy are an inspiration to us all!! It was great to meet you at MINI United 2007 :) Wishing you both many more miles of happy, carefree motoring!
115hp

quote: From 50K to 100K everything was exactly perfect except for the A/C pump going out during the hottest summer we have seen in 20 years. It was replaced and now my MINI has a part on it that can turn sub-12 second quarter mile times, should I ever need to do that.

Can you mention the name of that part?
bee1000

That’s a lot of miles! I’m up to a lowly 72,000 miles in my 2004 and feel the same as you do. I hope to keep this car for a long time. I’m sure every service trip is going to include an unexpected repair or replacement, but it still will be less expensive than car payments. And frankly there isn’t another car around that I would want to be making payments on.
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http://dbmini.us DB

The next milestone will be at 240k miles. That is the distance from the earth to the moon. :)

AWESOME! Now I am really looking forward to that!

Can you mention the name of that part?

It was a stock A/C pump. However it did come off of the world’s fastest MINI, the M600.

We need to have a Roxy-polooza and get some or your wish list taken care of.

That’s a great idea! Then maybe I could go to MOT or MoTD.
Rocketboy

200k? Yowza… At my current rate, I’d be shocked if I ever achieved that many miles. That 3 minute drive to work has a tendency to keep the miles off :).

(Side note, in case they come back to this post, Hello Jack.)
MINI VANILLI

DB i have an important question for you since you engine seems to be trouble free. how often do you change your oil and oil filter? do you use the car computer, or do you have your own schedule? also on break in, did you follow the manual or did you drive it hard? thanks in advance.
http://dbmini.us DB

DB i have an important question for you since you engine seems to be trouble free. how often do you change your oil and oil filter? do you use the car computer, or do you have your own schedule? also on break in, did you follow the manual or did you drive it hard?

Great questions! For oil changes, I follow the computer for the most part, but there have been a couple of cycles that I have gone over by as much as 5K miles.

For break-in, I did follow the manual and kept the revs under 4K for the first 1200 miles. In the R50, it was very noticeable when it happened which I thought was cool.
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MINI VANILLI

Great questions! For oil changes, I follow the computer for the most part, but there have been a couple of cycles that I have gone over by as much as 5K miles.

For break-in, I did follow the manual and kept the revs under 4K for the first 1200 miles. In the R50, it was very noticeable when it happened which I thought was cool.

good to know DB. i have been doing every 5000 miles in my R56 MCS and i think ill move it to 10,000-15,000. save some $$$
C4

Congratulations DB! This week I will be hitting 50K miles on my 2005 R53 S and I am looking forward to get up to 150K+ miles on this car or perhaps more.

The Frank Stephenson MK1 MINI design ages incredible well over the years and the car still manages to turn heads. The TRITEC engine is bulletproof and built to last.

My 2005 is a keeper and I hope to pass it down to my son in 20 years time. We’ll see.
Jimbo

you wrote: “Once I was passed 100K, wear and tear started setting in”

This is incorrect.

Should be: “Once I was past 100K, wear and tear started setting in.”

Or “Once I passed 100K, wear and tear started setting in.”
gokartride

As one who also has a much-loved ’03 Cooper (IB/W) in my driveway (my daughter drives it every day, I drive an ’07 Cooper), I thank you for this report. Mine has had a fix or two as well, yet I can’t describe the outrageous value of the car given the superb motoring it continues to dish out.
JonPD

It would be fun to see an event setup for a collection of high mileage Minis. Would be great to see Roxy along with the 200+ other drivers out there. Then again I have a very good friend that just cracked 700k in a classic ;)

Still have to say that the thing the amazes me the most about the Mini family is if you think that the design for the BMW era Mini is close to 10 years old that the car really withstands time well with Frank’s initial design. I look at Mini family and still get the feeling that this car is still in many ways timeless. Compare it to many cars designed around the same time as the Mini and its amazing how many feel very dated.

Great job once again DB
F Fisher

Good Job, 200,000 miles in anything is an accomplishment.
R50Paul

Wow! that gives me a ton of hope for my 93k 2003 R50! Congrats on crossing the 200k mark.
veggivet

Congratulations, DB on the milestone (pun intended). I don’t have even half that mileage between my two 02′s yet!
http://www.MinisintheMountains.com Jonathan Souza

You know, it is time that little car made a trip to Colorado in the summertime. MITM4 is August 5-9, 2009 and I cannot think of a better celebration. I will gladly give a prize for the high mileage car.

I thought I had a lot of miles at 61,000. I pickep up mine about 3 weeks before you did. 5 trips to AMVIV, 4 to the Dragon, and about every state west of the Mississippi.

Well, I guess I will keep on road-tripping.

Jonathan
Dylan

@Jimbo. Your personal off-topic insults are lame.
veggivet

Jimbo was just pointing out a grammatical error – I don’t see any personal attack intent, FWIW.
greg

I like the maroon color. One of several great colors that I wish Mini would bring back along with Electric Blue Silk Green,Orange,and Flat Black. Is it true BRG is going away??
Kathy

Congratulations on the milestone and thanks for the write-up. Up to January of this year I owned Velveteen_MINI, a 2003 Velvet Red Cooper with CVT. I traded her in for a 2006 JCW Competition Edition but I still miss her. I, too, had a new tranny under warranty and the ghost of Lucas Electrics seemed to haunt me but all that seemed to be fixed just a few months before she was traded in. MINI was great about warranty, and out of waranty repairs. I have a photo of my speedo at 100,000km. You are right about MINI being a great car.

Just wish I could have afforded to keep both MINIs as I loved that car and the colour.
http://www.motoringfun.com Pedro

Congrats DB!! Wow – 200K miles :). Very cool.
http://dbmini.us DB

@Jimbo. Your personal off-topic insults are lame.

Actually not. I’m amazed I didn’t catch that before I pressed the button. No harm, no foul (bonus I changed the post).

@everyone Thanks!
greg

Jimbo. Gett a lyfe.
http://dbmini.us DB

You know, it is time that little car made a trip to Colorado in the summertime. MITM4 is August 5-9, 2009 and I cannot think of a better celebration. I will gladly give a prize for the high mileage car.

If I can get my suspension fixed before then, I might actually try to make it!
Dylan

@DB. Ah well – if you’re happy with people pointing out spelling errors in the comments then hey, it’s your site. Personally I find it ruins the comments section but each to their own.
http://www.detroittuned.com Tori – Future Queen

Congrats DB!! When you’re ready to fix it all, let us know ;)
http://dbmini.us DB

Ah well – if youâ€™re happy with people pointing out spelling errors in the comments then hey, itâ€™s your site.

I know the grammar nazis are always out watching for mistakes. I usually appreciate them.

Personally I find it ruins the comments section but each to their own.

Personally, I find that the fact there are now 5 comment about a spelling error (including this one) have ruined the comments on, and if I can toot my horn a little, one of the best articles I have ever written.

I wasn’t bothered. Lets get over it shall we? I have noticed that you haven’t joined in on this conversation yet regarding your mileage experience. Now we be a good time to do that. :)
Dylan

@DB – if your happy for the “Grammar Nazis” (your words) to point out your grammatical errors in the comments…then hey as I said it’s your call but you probably shouldn’t then complain to me about the number of comments related to spelling and grammar (unless you have a really good spell checker). I was just trying to stand up for you and make a point, but I get the message so I’ll let it go in the future.

RE: my mileage…I’m only 22,000ks into my R56 Cooper S and already onto my second engine…both badly affected by the cold start issue that’s been talked about in previous Motoringfile articles (which I’ve posted comments on).

Anyway congrats for reaching 200k miles and for writing a great article (grammatical errors and all).

Over and out!
ProfessorZoom

Don- Cecil & I wish you and Roxy congratulations, I hope that my MINIs will be around as long. Great job! and i hope to see you next time in SoCal or MINI United.
http://www.iwantamini.com MaxMCS

Cheers, may the motoring live on for many more miles!!
C4

My ’05 R53 S turned 50K miles last night @ 10:10PM (EST). It took 3 years, 7 months, 23 days, 10 hours to reach that mileage.

Officially, out of warranty!
veggivet

Can’t resist this easy target: Dylan, when you wrote “If your happy…”, your should have been you’re, as you were using a contraction of you + are, not the possessive your.
Dylan

Actually veggivet, if you read my comment more carefully you will notice that I did indeed use “you’re” and not “your”. Perhaps it is you who is the easy target? And here’s some free advice while I’m here – it’s not necessary to point out people’s mistakes to them, much less to give them corrections.
veggivet

Dylan, the second word in your post is YOUR, not you’re. The last sentence in that paragraph says you’ll “let it go in the future”.

This is my last word on this issue.
Aaron

congrats! That’s quite a haul!
Dylan

I hope you feel better and validated as a person veggivet.
http://www.ausmotive.com Liam

This is so cool! Thanks for sharing…
therover413

Go Velvet Red!!!!!!!

Nice going, you kept saying that you have driven it without any problems, then list a ton of things that have gone wrong and are going bad!!??? Listen don’t get me wrong here, I’ve replaced an engine, a transmission, belts, rotors, brakes and god knows what else, but I am a realist here. I won’t trade my ’03 Velvet Red for anything, but I will never not tell people of my woes of owning this car, it has cost me a ton of money, in my first year of owning it, it spent about three months in the shop, I have no idea how many miles on it now, the engine is a re-man. and the tranny was replaced with a brand new one, everything I seem to do myself still seems to cost about $200 bucks in parts.

Hopefully the fiancees soon to be clubman will fair better!!!

Cheer and congrats!!!! Brian
Michael

I live in Wisconsin and saw and talked to the owner of a 2002 MINI Cooper with 310,000 miles. The gentleman said he’s a retired engineer, I think from Milwaukee – I did not get his name, but he said he said he posts on the MINI Owner’s Lounge. It might be nice to run a feature on the man and his light green metalic 2002 MINI Cooper.
Rowan

Excellent writeup.

Here’s to many many more happy motoring miles!

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