Jim has a few nice cars, but he can’t just drive a “normal” daily, or a beater, so his 2012 MINI Clubman S makes his commute less of a task and more something that he looks forward to.
Yes 2012 mini cooper club and s this is an r56 this is actually my third mini so oh really yeah the first mini i got was a 03 cooper plane jane british green with the white roof on it yeah it was it was the one six non-turbo i got it because it was a mini loved it actually i owned it for only two years before i found the 03 john cooper works edition which
Was the fully loaded it was bumble bee yellow i loved the car i loved the minis when 08 hit everybody went out of work i lost it so since 08 i’ve been looking for you know another mini is my daily and how long have you had this one going on three years now i can obviously tell it’s a little bit beyond stock but it’s not crazy yeah it’s not crazy it’s a daily
Upgraded the wheels 19-inch wheels all my car’s got to sound loud so it’s got the custom exhaust on it with no mufflers it actually sounds pretty good i got the stage one upgraded blow-off valve on the turbo okay um just to give that little edge to it i put the stock wheels on during winter with snow tires so it seized weather too the clubman itself wasn’t a
Very known and popular version of the mini because a lot of people like the small minis which i did too i got it for because it was going to it was going to daily it so i wanted the extra room and i liked it because of the square back it’s got the mini front the sport wagon back now does this have the split doors yes yes okay it has the barn doors so tell me
A little bit about the exhaust you said it’s a custom yeah it’s um i had a performance shop in oakmont built it for me again did the resonator delete did no mufflers two and a half inch downpipe kept the cat and then ran all two and a half inch pipe all the way back straight through it sounds pretty good it’s got a nice rumble to it but it doesn’t drone on the
Highway which i was really surprised now these wheels are these hd like what’s on your yeah these are hd’s it’s on my 99 beetle only these are the 19-inch with the reverse on my beetle i got the machine face with the black insets these are the black face with the machine inset with it being a smaller tire now you feel a little bit more of the road of course
You got to watch the potholes i do mainly highway driving to work so right now the people that aren’t in the pittsburgh area are potholes yeah right they just don’t get it i should do a video just driving around on pittsburgh right this is why it’s exhausting yeah people have nice cars here i thought i screwed up a front wheel i hit a pothole so hard yeah it
Knocked my glove box door open is it lowered or is this factory no it’s factory riding that’s factory ride but on the s’s they used a little bit more tuned suspension interior wise yeah have you done anything in there i know the bug was over yeah it’s really hard for me to leave a car untouched but you know there’s a point where you guys say well this is just
Leave it alone enjoy it so that’s what i’m doing with this fully loaded it’s got the leather high speed automatic but it’s got the paddle shifts in it the steering is actually assisted by a power box for when you drive it in sport it tightens it up like a more go-kart like feel oh stock brakes yeah yeah stock brakes i just upgraded the pads color covers on it
And open wheel like that it gives it a clean look i did my own rally stripes and i took off the the standard mini style like v-shaped across the hood when i bought the car they were white i don’t know why they did white on a red black car but i took those off right away and did two rally stripes have you done much maintenance on it yourself one of those things
That’s very difficult i’ll tell you why i i tell anybody who gets one especially in a newer one the oil change to do it yourself it’s a two hour oil change i don’t know what the engineers were thinking when they did it because you gotta tear out the intake tube you gotta tear out the coolant bottle because they put the oil filter down under the turbo and you
Gotta have all these special tools that get done in there to do it cussed that out the first time i did it you take it to the mini the dealership they charge you two three hundred dollars to do that i’ll figure out how to do it it’s like i do everything else i just recently had to put a battery in it my battery finally went dead right it was the original battery
In it the battery sits down in the wiper cowl almost into the dashboard so you gotta tear the entire wiper cowl off to get back down into there to put a new battery in so if you want to do stuff yourself on it i would definitely read youtube it read it again unless you want to pay the price of what they’re going to charge you at the dealer because there’s not
Too many local mom-and-pop garages that are you know you oh i got a mini oh i’ll see you later but the trade-off’s worth it it is it really is it’s a fun car they do last i know you got the bug and i know you have the mark one gti yeah you take to shows yeah stuff you’ve ever taken this i have some days i caught my rain car i get a little some looks on it yeah
Because it is a square back you know clubman a lot of people you know i asked why do you drive a mini for your daily i’m not a beater person on my beetle when i first bought it i had an 89 topaz and that was a beater i couldn’t do it i couldn’t remember what i told you exactly and it was this ugly burgundy color four cylinder in it had no power whatsoever i’m
Not a beater driver the car that i drive has to reflect my personality you
Transcribed from video
A better daily driver – 2012 MINI Clubman S owner interview By Cylinder Scene
