Just traded in my 01' VW Passat 1.8T (reliable nightmare) for an 04' Mini Cooper S. The car is fun to drive and has good built quality. I'll post some pics later.

BTW, the EVO is still much more fun and way faster.

 

nice car! congrats.

 

Great choice. The drive becomes a lot more fun after the break-in period

 

Congrats on your new car, Mark. My wife got the same car but not the S though. It was fun to drive and fast too. Drove it to Vegas couple months ago and all I can say is, going 130 mph on it was fun and fast with 4 of us on the car. Enjoy it and drive safely.

 

How about throwing an Evo engine and drivetrain in there. Now THAT would be fun!

 

Man, after watching the movie, "The Italian Job", I wanted a Mini Cooper so bad! Congrats on the cool car.

 

no joke, lol, I would personally love to have one of these, looks to have great fun factor and I have heard they are quite roomy on the inside.

 

How does the chassis and steering feel compared to your evo? I'm asking because I've driven a mini and like how it drives, but have never been in an evo before.

 

This car had a better slalom than a Porsche GT2!!!!

Great choice.

 

The steering is a little bit heavier than the EVO's, but it doesn't give as much feedback. I haven't drive the car hard yet, so I can't comment on how good the chassis is, but it rides softer and more isolated than the EVO.

 

Hate to give you the news, but my "03 MCS was a reliability nightmare as well. My Evo, however, has been fine. Go figure. Anyway, BMW doesn't like mods any better than Mitsu does when it comes to warranty claims. It's a fun car, if you can get used to it being called "cute" constantly .

 

But at least BMW's service is way better than VW (most VW dealers in my area are ).

BTW, here's a picture of my MCS

 

Nice pic. It looks like you got the sport package. Did you get any other packages?

 

Im looking for a new car too..im gearing towards either a Mini S or a Suby WRX...which would you guy go for and why? pro's and cons?

i want something that is turbo'd in the 20K - 25K range. what other car would you guys suggest? no evo's please....

 

I test drove a '04 WRX and it feels faster in acceleration because it is. The Mini S feels a lot faster in the corners. However the interior of the WRX feels very cheap compared to the Mini S. There is less maitenance with the Mini S in that the first scheduled maintenance is at 9k miles for an oil change, and you change the oil every 15k miles. The Mini S also gets better gas milage (if that is a selling point for you). I hear the waiting time for delivery of a new Mini S is very long. I lucked out and only had to wait 3 -4 weeks for mine to come in.

The WRX has more potential to mod. As for other cars that are 20k - 25k and turbo'd you could look into the SRT-4, Ion Redline, Mazdaspeed Protoge, GTI 1.8t