hello,

This is my first post on this forum and I am hoping someone could help me out. I have been saving up for a while now and I am just about ready to purchase my very first Mini Cooper. My friend has a 2008 Mini S with around 48k miles on it and he is willing to give me a good deal on it. I wanted to modify it as soon as I get it to increase the HP but I have been told by several of people that the 2008 models are notorious for leaking oil and tend to “blow up” if they are running over 260hp. I don’t think the mods I want to do (adding an aftermarket inter cooler, turbo pipe, down pipe, Andy custom exhaust) will put the mini in that HP range but I am worried about the longevity of the engine running any sort of modifications. I have been looking online but for the life of me I am unable to find anything about what’s i would need to replace on the stock engine to make sure that the engine wont fail on me. I want it to be as reliable as possible without paying 8K for an aftermarket performance engine.