I know of 3 people who've bought mini's of this age..they were all crap and cost them hundreds upon hundreds of pounds to fix.All the problems already mentioned on this thread were encountered so it really doesn't look good.
There is a reason the market is saturated with mini's of this age..i'd steer well clear personally!
Thanks for the advice, that puts a spanner in the works.
Obviously you have to decide what's right for you although in your shoes I'd be looking for something low maintenance and from what I've heard, the Mini can never be considered that.
I also hated the cheap interior on ours, the plastics would get brittle and clips would break.
Tyre pressure monitor would also go off all the time for no reason
I assume you've checked out the "top ten cheapest cars to insure for young drivers" lists? Peugeot's 107, VW's fox and UP, and the Mazda2 all seem to feature in most of them.
Interesting on the insurance price, have just spent the last 2 days trying to find decent insurance prices on Minis, Corsas etc for my son who passed his test on Friday, we live in one of the lowest areas for insurance prices he is 20 years old and has 6 points from previous motorbike speeding and he absolutely refuses to have a black box
His quotes are coming in circa 2k and up data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
What I am not impressed with is that when he went back to some quotes after an hour or so they had upped the prices between 500 to 800 extra data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7
The Mazda 2 is a great little car.
But not if you are looking for circa 2006 models data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7What would be the equivalent older model? Of course there's no guarantee the older models will as cheap to insure data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7.
FWIW - we have an '05 plate convertible which replaced an '02 plate hard top.
Both Cooper S spec.
The '02 car was replaced when it started to show some really irritating electrical niggles.
There was a wiring loom issue in the early cars - recalled in the US but not here.If you moved the seats too violently with the engine running the airbag system would detect a drop in the current/voltage to the seat occupancy sensor and disable the system and pop on the warning light.Simple to reset with a cheap tool and if you taped up the connectors it wouldn't happen again.
Water leaking into the boot switch mechanism through the rubber seal (above the number plate) would cause the boot to refuse to open after a wet drive.You could manually release it with the handle under the back seat and a new boot catch would have fixed it but we were ready to sell the car.
So the '02 plate was traded in when it was 5 years old - as that was the company car allowance limit - for the '05 plate convertible.
We've had that one for 11 years - it's only done 75K.Hand on heart I can't remember anything serious going wrong with it that isn't normal wear and tear (tyres, brakes etc.)The only things I have had to fix - gunged up washer bottle which was a pain.Reversing sensor failed and needed replacement.Gear selector cables started to stick (due to age) and that caused a crunch in 1st, 3rd and 5th - simple enough to replace them both.
There are reports of power steering pumps failing, but if you google any car that's 12yrs old you'll find a fault with something.
On a positive note.I really like the way the mini drives and handles.It's better looking than your average small car.The boot is pretty small and the back seat is a push for an adult but as having lots of mates in the car is often a factor in young drivers having accidents that may not be a bad thing.
The One and the Cooper and the S share a lot of the same gear.The One is detuned from the Cooper and the S is the Cooper engine with a Supercharger attached.Lots of parts are interchangeable which may help with the cost of repairs and it has an enthusiast following so there is help online to fix stuff yourself.
I thought that is relevantly cheap. I remember paying £2000 for my first car at 17