Well, I recently picked up eight 2003 Mini Cooper S. Considering I got it by trading in my automatic 2003 Ford Escort wagon, the difference is night and day. The thing really moves! Unfortunately there were some other problems that weren't quite as obvious.

The neat thing about this particular car was that I picked it up right next to a big retirement home and it turned out that the car although it had a bunch of miles on it was actually towed behind a big Winnebago motorhome like a dinghy behind all yacht. It was also half the price of the exact same car at the Cooper dealer, so that gave me some money to get it fixed up a little.

 

Hello and welcome on board! Glad to have you here. Congrats on your Mini, show it to us when you can. Lots of very informed members on here with a wealth of information, so you've come to the right place.

 

Welcome to MINI Cooper Forums! Congratulations on the purchase! What problems does it have?

 

some of the little problems I'm having with my car is, when I open the drivers side door I hear a "thunk" and then a little "screech". I think that somehow the driver side door got a little 'dinged'. it seems to shut okay, But it's definitely not perfect.

the bigger problem I have is that the bloody display screen in the middle of the c dash only shows half the display. The big display screen works and the little one does not. I do get to see the gas mileage and the range but any other information is not there. It would really be helpful if I could tell whether or not the battery is charging and what kind of temperature the engine is running at. I've looked at the 2005 Mini Cooper S and it seems as though they've gotten rid of the digital display and went back to analog gauges. I'm hoping that I might be able to go that way.( they probably are only analog in the displays)

Another problem that I've been having is that my left front headlight has been out randomly and I've got two little driving lights located at the bumper were also out.( Turns out, that I pulled my car aside and worked at jiggling the little connector that came from my ballast and voilą not only did the left headlight come on but my two little driving lights also came to life.) It would be neat to find some way to clean up that connection for more permanent fix.

 

Turns out that after going through a police roadblock, whereas the officer told me I had to get my left front light fixed. I promptly went home and thought, what would my dad do?(He is an electrical engineer) So the first thing I did was to check out the connectors that were heading from the ballast to the headlights. All I needed to do was to shift the connectors in and out for about 30 seconds. After that I got my left light going again and both of those little running lights coming out of the front bumper also turned on! Grand total spent, zero dollars.

 

Looks like I forgot that I already did this update, now looking real silly,

I woke up this morning and promptly updated myself before I even read my own post.

(Sigh)