I have an prefacelift R53 and it's time to do the engine mounts and will do all three at the same time. I have the Upper and Middle? mounts on the passenger side and was wondering if the Post Facelift design is an upgrade as far as reducing NVH is concerned. I know I would need to get a new bracket (plenty used on ebay) and a obviously a new mount. It would get rid of the upper mount (the one that attached to the strut tower) and clean up the look I suppose.
Do not buy OEM mounts they are junk and will continue to fail over and over. Virbra-Technics mounts are the way to go. Don’t use Polly and they vibrate like crazy. https://www.greeneperformance.com/collections/mini-oem-performance-parts?page=8
The preface lift mount is way better then the post. They don’t need to be replaced like the post facelift. No oil to leak out. Ether stay with the type that came with the car or get the Virbra-Technics
In 120,000 miles my 06 MCS went through 2 mounts. That didn't bother me because they were NVH free. Never used a Virbra-Technic mount so I can't give my .02 on them.
This is my 2 cents. Actually, we don't have pennies in Canada anymore. I had a BSR poly lower engine mount in my car at one time, and my passenger compartment was super noisy from the vibration that gets transmitted from the engine bay. Especially noisy in the winter when the bushing got harder due to the temperature. So I will not be using a solid bushing upper engine mount as the same thing will happen. So I look at this way, the Vibra Technic engine mount is quality piece. It is over engineered and it does exactly what it is supposed to do, and more. If you put one in, it appears to me, you will not have to replace another one in your R53 MINI for as long as you own the car. If your car is modified and your horsepower is boosted way over what your car came with when new, then go for it. I'm pretty sure it is worth every penny you pay for it. To me, it looks that good. The problem for me is, in Canada, the part itself costs over $600CDN. My 2005 MCS has over 270,000 kms on the odometer in the 14 years I've had the privilege of driving such a beast. It is lightly modified with a 15% pulley, and I have replaced the upper engine mount twice at less than $100CDN each time. So it is much more cost effective to just go OEM. I build it into your maintenance cost. I forego the outrageously priced "Inspection 1" and "Inspection 2" maintenance packages from the dealer and do the basic routine maintenance myself anyways. That budget can be used to replace any worn parts of such an old (and well used) car. If I can get 5 years out of one each upper engine mount, I think I'm doing pretty good. ...btw...as a footnote about having a dealer maintain your car...read my recent post on my recent oil change at the dealership in the "What did you do with your MINI today" thread. I suspect in MINIs cost cutting efforts, they've let a lot of their experienced mechanics go and have hired new young guns who have never worked on R53 MINIs before. So beware.
Just ordered a genuine preface lift engine mount. Bought the one without the strap and just transferred over my old one over. Didn't realize how bad my old mounts were until I compared them. Did all three at once. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro