Another one of those relability threads...or talk me into a mini
 

Hi all! I am considering to change a car and the mini is on my top 5, but the image of them not being so reliable is kinda off-putting for me. First of, I know the mantra "it's a money pit but it has personality"-I had two v-dubs http://www.northamericanmotoring.com...ilies/grin.gif Now my current car is a 06 civic which is about to reach 80k and it was not as mythically trouble free as the stories about hondas go. I had replaced the clutch master cylinder, transmission input shaft bearing, front brake rotors. Overall, with the 30k and 60k services and excluding oil changes this car cost me about $5000 in repairs/maintenance so far. Yikes. So, if I pick up a used mini (preferably a manual 07+ s) with 20k~30k on the odometer and keep it until it hits 80k-100k, can I expect it to cost less or at most as much as my civic? It would be interesting to hear the opinion of mini owners who drove over 100k miles.

Just for fun, here are the other cars I was thinking about: Fiat 500 Abarth(same, questionable reliability), Honda CRZ(I actually LIKE it, but the hybrid battery issues seem iffy), Hyundai Veloster Turbo(seems like hyundai stepped their game up, but driving it wasn't as exciting), Mazda 3 Skyactiv (seems to be the most reasonable but...)