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New Cooper S owner checking in

1224 Views 12 Replies 5 Participants Last post by  CelticWebs, 
C
Hi Everyone,

I'm Huw, often known as Celtic on most forums for various car marques. I'm a web developer by trade and my wife Nia, absolutely loves minis. We've had a 2005 Cooper D and a 2008 Auto Cooper S convertible in the past and she really wanted another so last Friday I managed to find a nice 60 plate Pepper Manual Cooper S convertible for her. I bought him knowing there were issues, initially his roof didn't work and he was in limp mode. I decided to take a chance and bought him.

After some general educated fiddling and a code reset I got the roof working again. The engine management light was not so simple, fuel pressure low was the code and as I'm sure many of you already know, that, as far as I can tell, is commonly a high pressure fuel pump issue.

I did some further investigation and decided that he had all the right symptoms for the fuel pump so started looking around for a new one. eBay looked to be the go to place as it seemed to be the only place that listed pumps with a price online. Luckily while working out how to get the usb connection to work for an iPhone / iPod I discovered our car was the MY2011 car with an N18 not the N14 which I originally believed it was, apparently more reliable which is currently debatable lol. I then unfortunately found out that the High pressure fuel pump was nearly double the money for an N18 over the N14. Spent some further time looking around and eventually found that it was actually cheapest direct from mini! Who'd have thought!

Decided to bite the bullet and book him in with Mini in Cardiff to supply and fit the new pump along with a full service and a recall that was outstanding. He goes in tomorrow. Fingers crossed I'm not wasting my money on a pump that's not needed!

Once it's all fixed and running for a while without trouble, I'm looking to give him a little boost in power. I see a post saying a sports decat, intake filter and exhaust can be had for around £500? That seems stupidly cheap but there again I'm used to the prices on my own car which tend to have an extra zero on the end just of the fun of it!

So that's us and our mini, looking forward to meeting a few of you at various events that we attend.

Regards Huw & Nia
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2
Oh and some quick pics, not had a chance to take decent ones yet but her he is in all his glory when I first brought him home.

He currently gets referred to a Robo Butty lol
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S
Welcome!

What's your car then, if it makes Mini parts look cheap? :D
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C
We also have a GTR, it seems if you drive one of these, dealers and garages think it's perfectly fine to stick and extra digit on prices!
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MinIan
Hi and welcome
I actually thought the HPFP was cheaper on the N18
You'll also find that mini are often the cheapest for parts so always worth giving them a try - Cotswold mini are a forum sponsor and do good prices ;)
Having said that a dealer will rip you a new ahole on labour so I'd always go indi - coastal racing should be near you
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C
It may well be officially cheaper, on eBay though it was about £450 for the n14 and £799! For the n18. Mini themselves are just over £500 if I remember correctly.

I was given the details of a specialist in cardiff called Swiss something, I checked in their prices for the service and it actually worked out £5 cheaper for the mini dealer to do it. Not what I expected and I'm sure if I'd spoken to the specialist they'd have beaten the price, just didn't seem worth the hassle. Booked it in on Monday with Mini and they're having it tomorrow, called them about 10 mins ago on the off chance that they possibly could sort a courtesy car for me, they didn't have one available but booked an enterprise car for me. Admittedly the lady said it won't be a Mini or a BMW but who cares, it's only to get me home and back to collect it when it's ready.

Very impressed so far with mini Cardiff. My previous experience with them was that they were a little bit snooty and rather dismissive, that was a couple of years ago so they've obviously stepped up their game :)

Just fingers crossed now that the pump and a full service fixes the issue and it's all back to normal running :)
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CelticWebs said:
It may well be officially cheaper, on eBay though it was about £450 for the n14 and £799! For the n18. Mini themselves are just over £500 if I remember correctly.

I was given the details of a specialist in cardiff called Swiss something, I checked in their prices for the service and it actually worked out £5 cheaper for the mini dealer to do it. Not what I expected and I'm sure if I'd spoken to the specialist they'd have beaten the price, just didn't seem worth the hassle. Booked it in on Monday with Mini and they're having it tomorrow, called them about 10 mins ago on the off chance that they possibly could sort a courtesy car for me, they didn't have one available but booked an enterprise car for me. Admittedly the lady said it won't be a Mini or a BMW but who cares, it's only to get me home and back to collect it when it's ready.

Very impressed so far with mini Cardiff. My previous experience with them was that they were a little bit snooty and rather dismissive, that was a couple of years ago so they've obviously stepped up their game :)

Just fingers crossed now that the pump and a full service fixes the issue and it's all back to normal running :)
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is this sytner mini cardiff as thats where i bought my clubby from and had great service from the team. i was dealing with a canadian guy.

ps love the gtr!! i am in two minds to sell the clubby for the 370z..
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Yes it was Sytner Cardiff. Decent service and problem does now appear to be fixed :)
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CelticWebs said:
Yes it was Sytner Cardiff. Decent service and problem does now appear to be fixed :)
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its funny my clubby is from wales, and then we recently bought a cooper and that was from the garage down the road in wales.

i have been meaning to pop in there.
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Bokers
More info on the GTR? Is it standard?
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C
Bokers said:
More info on the GTR? Is it standard?
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It's modified and somewhere between 680 and 700 bhp. Fantastic machines, at 600bhp they'll outrun a 1000bhp of their R34 predecessor. Faster than many super bikes and acceleration is like taking off in a plane. Love it!
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Bokers
Excellent, sounds like a beast. Bring it out to play at a meet?
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It's certainly a bit of a buzz to drive. Might fetch it if there's a Welsh meet local to me sometime, a few have asked me to lol
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