Driving a Mini gets the same attention as driving a super car...

Hi, my girlfriend and I have just gone halves on what we think is a stunning Mini, we love her to bits and she is so much fun to drive.

I know nothing about engines so I've made it my mission to try to learn how to fix them, and so far so good, but, what we did not expect was the reaction of people as we drive her around. The turning of heads, when we pull over people are talking to us about their Minis that they used to own and even offering helpful advice to us both which has been overwhelming...we broke down (I managed to fix the fuel float problem once I knew what it was from another helpful chap) and a guy approached us to help, that never happened in our previous cars.

Today an angry looking chap looked at our car whilst we were sat at traffic lights and openly smiled for ages at us, so I gave him a huge thumbs up and smiled back, and he reciprocated...wtf?

In about two weeks of owning our lady we have had two serious offers to buy the car from us for much more than we paid for her, loads of compliments and more head turns than any Porsche owner would have had...we didn't know this would happen at all but now I feel compelled to share my experiences and ask...how much has a Mini changed your life?

I honestly do not think I could own another car now

 

Thank you everyone, we love her already

 

Hi, just a quick update before I can tell you all the full story, but, we realised that the Mini that we had was beautiful but needed some work done on the safety side of it. We luckily were put it touch with a lovely and honest Mini enthusiast that did a full diagnostic on our baby, and we were given a list of things we could do to improve the safety of our car. We took the top few jobs to do onboard and the mechanic did them at what we think is a very reasonable price. The Mini now drives beautifully and sounds like a very safe and non dangerous bag of nails. Things we had done were...replaced all shock absorbers, new brake pads, new brake discs, one new calliper, slow puncture fixed, exhausted raised and re-mounted, front rod bush kits replaced times two, one front track rod end, cleaned and adjusted rear brakes and changed brake fluid, wheel bearings tightened and diagnosed hazard lights and petrol gauge issues. With one hour of analysis and a complete total price (including parts and labour) of £280 we felt that was a small price to pay for our safety and knowing all about our cars ins and outs. One extra thing that we really appreciated was being shown all the work that was done and the invitation for myself (Craig) to come back when I wasn't working to once again have the car on the ramp and be shown the complete workings, work and everything else about my car with my hope of learning about my Mini, at no extra cost....I feel that we have found an honest and reliable mechanic at a garage that we can trust who had been recommended for his passion for Classic Minis

 

Thank you Firebro17, your Mini is stunning...do you still have it? Do you have a prefered website to buy your parts from?