I've been meaning to start a thread for a while here to smoke out any other fans of these cars. I bought one a while back on BaT that I mentioned on this board somewhere and now just acquired another one. One will have to go, not sure which.
I bought this '04 MCS with 78k miles and Dinan upgrades+Borla cat back exhaust on BaT. I wasn't in the market but it was in CA. and I liked the color a lot, plus it wasn't getting any bids to speak of.
It turned out that the seller was not a very honest guy wrt maintenance needs that were due and I got screwed a little. The cheap Chinese tires were below the wear bars, the front rotors were below minimum spec, one axle boot was ripped open spraying grease all over, one bad wheel bearing and the big one, completely shot lower control arm bushings, (LCAs).
The LCAs on this car are a big job because it either requires lowering the entire front subframe or pressing in and out just the bushings with a special tool. Not surprised that the previous long term owner, (not the guy I bought it from), did not want to pay the ~$1600 quote from the dealer to do it and sold the car, (I found the estimate with the records that came with the car).
Soooo, that was a bad roll of the dice on BaT. Of course, I corrected everything wrong with the car and now it's tighter than a bull's ass and fun to drive. Recent neglected maintenance not withstanding, it was babied most of its life with one long term owner who kept a huge 3-ring binder full of every receipt and article he ever read about Mini Coopers. He entered it in local car shows in NorCal, put expensive mods on it, etc...
FWIW, BaT reaches out to people who buy on their site asking how it went, all that stuff. I told them about the dishonesty of the seller and they tried to go after him for some refund but that went nowhere, of course. They did try and seemed to really care, so credit where due to them. They are nice people.
Here are some photos from the work I did on it, before pictures of the LCAs:
The special tool/press I had to buy to install the new ones:
