02/06/2026
‼️ ITS NOT OFTEN WE’RE LEFT SPEECHLESS‼️
This is an incredibly shocking story of how what WAS a very excited and LONG DISTANCE owner who picked up a ‘freshly built’ MINI Cooper S, supplied and worked on by another ‘MINI Specialist’.
This is a MINI that was SOURCED and SOLD to the owner, and money ploughed into based on trust.
We at MINI Sanc were beyond words when we took delivery of this car the same day he collected his car that he poured 20k into…(This does include initial purchase, paintwork and some choice performance upgrades).
It arrived on the back of a recovery truck THE SAME DAY OF PICK UP which we made time to take over a weekend. It unfortunately lost power and was unsafe to carry on his long journey to us.
We made a conscious effort to make a good start on bank holiday Monday to rectify serious issues this car was left with so that his love and faith wasn’t completely lost amongst experienced enthusiast mechanics.
The car was let go to him with one known issue of the gears failing to engage smoothly and was fobbed off to him as a ‘characteristic’ (a word I’ve used to sum up what they said) of the car with no solid answer of how to rectify, other than be quoted 12hrs or over £900 inc parts to replace a gear selector box with cables with further mention that it would actually take 20hrs… but cutting the slack at 12hrs charged…
My jaw simply dropped…
There is no world that exists where a gear selector set should take anywhere more than 3hrs inc some complications.
ANYWAY!!!
This beautiful R53 sits at my home ready for love and sure enough following a jump start, I have to put it in 1st gear before starting the engine and pulling away. I had 2nd, 4th and 6th gear freely available to use only so I had to tread carefully.
Cruising along, 20mins before I get to the workshop and the temperature gauge doesn’t even get to its normal range… odd? For a fresh build engine out refreshed car, it surely can’t be a faulty thermostat?
The steering wheel was sat badly on the wonk and everytime I touched the brakes I could feel a sharp ‘THUD’ reminiscent of heavily worn lower suspension arm bushes, the engine felt like it was hanging loose as well, you could feel it swinging around like a kid on monkey bars, the alternator was whining so badly and the ringing of a dry idler pulley bearing was piercing my ears… despite all of this, the engine sounded sweet and pulled strong.
WORKSHOP ENTRY… Let’s get to work!
Trolley jacks slid under and the car slung upwards… First look and we have a serious leak… Coolant, except it was hard to tell because it was just p**s water and of no colour that would resemble any colours of the rainbow.
We had a positive leak from the bleed screw which was left untightened and also the water pipes to the oil cooler were streaming at a rate of knots.
Coolant drained, we were lucky to have even pulled 2 litres from this car, so it was a blessing he was recovered to us because he may well have grenaded his engine had he persisted on driving halfway down the country to us.
With confirmation of zero coolant and leaks ascertained, we continued onto the biggest issue which was the gear situation.
Within 1hr we stripped the intake system to gain access to the gear cables up front, found 1 of 2 of the cables completely out from their guide and of course both completely unsheathed of their security clips…
A little check of the cable structure, a reposition and clips secured in nicely… We finally had a perfectly working gear set!! 🥳 🎉
How was this not checked?!! How can a specialist miss this and yet want to charge a diabolical £900… to replace cables…?!
Moving on… leaks were tended to, oil cooler pipes removed, cleaned up and clamped down properly.
With this out of the way, we ventured onto his breakdown issue, car won’t turn over, battery flat etc…
Front end removed and I was soon to find the newly installed alternator had its power strap just hanging in there, missing its 10mm securing bolt… by this point the alternator was fried hence it was noisy so we supplied a new unit and fitted it alongside a new aux idler pulley that it so desperately needed.
She fired and sounded so sweet with just the intake roar of the TPE filter setup he had and not overcome by noises of broken stuff.
NEXT… Why is the temp gauge only reaching 1/4 of the way up?
The radiator was warm enough to leave your hand on as opposed to piping hot as per a standard efficient cooling system on a mini…
So that tells me the thermostat is stuck open… right?
… but this engine had been out and had all new external gaskets & seals, all looking pretty and painted up.
We gained access to the thermostat housing, pulled out the existing thermostat and we were BLOWN AWAY from what we found… The thermostat had been cut free of its mechanics that allow consistent temperature of the cooling system throughout… What?!! WHY?!!
We prayed this isn’t the result of a serious issue that someone was trying to hide by letting the car run as cool as possible (less coolant pressure to find its way through weak spots)
New thermostat unit fitted (see photos for comparison)… Coolant filled and bled and she ticked over lovely with no untoward signs of temperature issues while it sat stable halfway on the temp gauge… PHEW!
We threw on a genuine MINI header tank cap for good measure too as we’ve seen aftermarket ones fail in a matter of days.
We’re REALLY getting somewhere now.
Next we investigate that horrible lower arm movement under braking and general driving over lumps and bumps…
A look around the subframe and arms reveals that the lower arm bushes and brackets are NEW, but of the cheapest quality and the rubber is so so soft it literally gives the effect of heavily worn original bushes. It’s surprising these weren’t polybushed during the car’s recommission.
Aftermarket OE bushes simply do not have the strength needed to keep the suspension arms from flapping hence you buy Genuine original MINI or install polybush variants… Customer advised that it’s a fix for another day as it’s very much an involved job to put right.
Finally we had that nasty engine slop… Upper and lower engine mounts are a very common item that gets overlooked by almost everybody. The replacement mounts were that of cheap quality and offered no support, the same issue we had with the lower arm bushes with their soft inserts. The cheapest, most effective way to resolve this issue is by installing the PowerFlex engine mount poly insert kits we frequently put into customers cars.
The upper torque (pitch) mount went in first… then swiftly followed by an attempt at the lower one, which we couldn’t remove because previous hands had stripped the thread into the captive nut thus leaving the bolt unable to remove or tighten. So now we have a lower mount that’s been left with no clamping force and what also explains a little rattle underneath during gear engagement… This could be a time consuming fix, a simple attempt could turn into something that’ll take half a day to rectify so it was left as it wasn’t going anywhere and would not cause any harm if the clamping bolt decided to exit the chat.
We move onto final visible fluid checks… The power steering fluid was next to non existent, barely any sat standing in the fluid pot and it was filthy brown.
This is a crucial fluid that owners typically let run dry as naturally these MINIs will weep a very tiny amount over a long period of time. Once this fluid gets too low and/or depleted, it’s not long before the power steering pump cooks itself and you’re immediately at a minimum of £450-500 for a fitted reconditioned unit.
Non-oem fixtures and fittings were found all over the place that we’d never seen attempted before which made it more time consuming to pull the car apart and back together.
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The owner got his car back the very next day following a thorough test drive. He was over the moon at the dedication and fast turn around that we provided.
6 Hours labour plus parts was charged start to finish with a few handouts thrown in as a massive THANK YOU 🙏🏼 to the owner for bringing us the work we so heavily rely on.
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Following this, in short, we’ve seen the owner’s request for assistance in this matter to the supplier of this MINI and their response quite frankly was defensive with no offer of support given… Which is shocking considering a reputation and status they appear to hold on the socials.
This post wouldn’t exist if accountability and efforts to put the car right were in place. We’re not out to cause carnage or damage business reputation for oversights and mistakes we put right. We feel the owner of the car is owed this post so he’s seen and hopefully a resolve comes of it.
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This write up is to educate the MINI community as a whole and because no accountability has been taken by this so called ‘specialist’. WE WILL NOT share who the other company is.
The owner however is incredibly upset and frustrated and I think things will come out of the woodwork eventually.
Please do your due diligence.
Not all specialists are perfect… Even WE make mistakes or overlook stuff but we are perfectly capable of taking accountability, no excuses… We break our backs to ensure every customer is happy and tended to the moment any issues arise.
Tread carefully out there!
Congrats if you’ve read this far!
✌🏼
