My Mini Clubman JCW R55 REVIEW *MODS & COSTS* by AutoTopNL
It’s a mini john cooper works clubman r55 ah this is a funny one you should change the downpipe stupid cyclists now these are nice these guys are nice hi guys what’s up ladies and gentlemen welcome to this pov review by auto top and l my name is martin and today we are taking a look at my second car because as you may know i personally drive a range rover
Supercharged but this is my like fun car it’s a mini john cooper works clubman r55 from 2012. and i have it since january 7th and i have already done a pov review with this car if you haven’t seen that one please go and check it out if you want to know all about the stock car because today i’m going to walk you through what i’ve done to the car to improve it
What i have done to fix it what has happened to the car and what my experiences are so far so it’s been like nine months since i bought the car and i have done quite a bit to it i think okay let’s walk you through the exterior stuff because if you have seen my earlier review of the stock car there are some exterior parts of it that i absolutely hate and it’s
Mostly the chrome parts on the john cooper works so this is what i have done to improve it if you look at it now from the front i think it’s quite a cool car to see but let’s check it out when i first bought it nah not so much so why does it look a bit more angry well that’s because all the chrome is now blacked out this ring right here this little piece the
Air scoop that’s fake it’s closed um the whole beltline of the mini this is called the beltline which is normally one big piece of chrome this also is chrome this is this is it’s all been blacked out this is now blacked out and at the rear i blacked out this light right here well it’s been like smoked um it just looks a bit more muscular and the barn doors as
These are called have also gotten black handles so what else have i done well little stuff to just make it a bit more special because i now have the john cooper works badge right here didn’t have that one before and remember that stupidly large antenna it’s gone and i replaced it with a stock sports antenna yeah i don’t know why but you can get a sports antenna
At midi i’ll show you the invoice but that’s just stupid that you have to buy that that’s an accessory okay that’s all the stuff to make it less girly barbie um let’s talk about the manly stuff yes i’ve done some manly stuff to this car well i’ve done some stuff to improve the fun actually it’s not about performance not entirely but it’s mainly about fun so i
As you’ve seen with my earlier review i was a bit disappointed with that john cooper works exhaust so for this one the r55 you cannot get an akrapovic exhaust you can on the r56 so that’s the three door version i wanted an akrapovic but you just can’t get it so what i’ve done is switch the down pipe and that’s actually a much more important piece or part when
It comes to sound because the down pipe i feel is like the throat of an engine and you could consider the exhaust to be the mouth so if you want like a full throaty sound you should change the down pipe and it’s i don’t know if we can see it but it’s the piece in between the turbo and the exhaust so this is where the turbo is there is a down pipe underneath
Here so that’s why it’s called a down pipe going down and it’s the one with a catalytic converter because with my previous cooper s mini i went for a catalyst downpipe but you know these engines they use a bit of oil and the smell and sound of oil burning in the exhaust it’s not really that pleasant and when you have a small catalytic converter this is a 200
Cell unit then you don’t have that problem anymore what i also did is get rid of those horrible front tires i used to have and switch them for these pilot sport 4 michelin tires i know we’ve talked a lot about the pilot sport 4 and 4s tires and you might think we got sponsored by michelin but don’t worry i really paid for these myself yes i did and it you know
It’s quite an expensive tire but the ride quality improves by so much when you put on these tires it’s absolutely insane it’s not the widest tire as you can see not really um what are they i don’t even know it’s 205 so that’s a skinny tire but that’s to improve the handling you don’t want a wide tire because the steering just gets a bit numb when you do okay
So jungkook works badge right there on the interior i haven’t done that much really because it’s an awesome interior with these jungkook works uh gp2 seats these are the ones from the gp2 and this was an optional extra in the normal jungkook works models but it was insanely expensive and nobody went for it i keep my invoices in the car always because i like i
Personally like it when i buy a car that all the invoices even the ones from like small stuff like an oil change i just want them to be there so i keep it all right here and let’s talk you through the costs i’ve had because when you buy a second-hand car don’t be surprised when you spend like a few grand on you know freshening it up i always do that ah this is a
Funny one uh well not really actually my girlfriend wants to wash the car because what was full of bird the windscreen was when it was like 38 degrees out and she threw a big bucket of cold water over the windshield and this is a curved windshield with the minis so they tend to break when you do that so i got a huge crack right here when she did that and that
Cost me 305 euros what also happened in that period 38 degrees out so the aircon decided to shut down and that costed me what is it 200 euros yeah so all together 732 euros 66 cents including labor and taxes yeah that was quite an expensive one ah so this is the one to like freshen it up so engine oil air filter interior filter brakes alignment stuff like that
To really improve the car 850 euros and 53 cents thank you very much what else do we have yeah this is the sports antenna so that was 24 euros this was installing the downpipe and adding the software so that i don’t get an engine light because i have a different downpipe and i did an improvement on the oil hose that goes to the turbo and this is the akrapovic
200 cell downpipe that was including taxes 695 euros and 75 cents so you might think wow that’s expensive man that’s bad luck but you know it’s not it’s just maintenance that had to be done nobody is going to sell their mini which are already quite expensive to maintain um when it’s like fully maintained you know everyone gets rid of their cars when the next
Service is due so just be prepared for that when you buy one of these have a few grand extra to do all the freshening up okay so let’s get driving and let’s see how the ride has really improved with all these changes so i’ve got my phone hauler right here and that’s because we are going to do a zero to 100 measurement later on first we are going to that tunnel
Right there to check out the sound of that akrapovic downpipe because i’ll give you a little preview that’s a lot a lot better than stock wow angry cyclists i’m doing 70 you it’s 80 right here stupid why are cyclists what what the hell is this what the f are you guys doing jesus christ morons so i’ll give you a little lighting um i’ve got my good camera right
Here and with the stock exhaust i did a little rev video in the tunnel and i’m going to do the same with this with the akrapovic downpipe and you can judge whether it’s worth that money so if you want those little burbles you have to turn on the sport mode but the downside of turning on the sport mode is that it also gives you the sport throttle mapping which
I think is way too aggressive if you even touch the pedal it gives you like an insane amount of power so it’s really hard to like feed the throttle what i also don’t like about sport mode is that the steering gets stupidly heavy and back then bmw had their electric power steering game totally wrong because it was just way too heavy in all m cars and all sporty
Cars in the most sporty mode it was just like weight lifting it didn’t add any feel it took away the feel so i prefer driving this car in normal mode so let’s talk about the handling and how it has improved with my changes so it’s a lot quieter it’s a lot less busy that front axle and that’s because it has those michelin pilot sport 4 tires and i’ve replaced
All the rubbers and bushings on the front axle so that has improved the handling by an insane amount because before that i thought why doesn’t this car have a limited slip diff it’s just understeering every time i’m producing just a little torque i don’t want to break that window um but that’s gone now thankfully because i just couldn’t put the power down in
Corners just going to open the windows just a bit for some extra sound i should have gone on a rainy day stupid cyclists now these are nice these guys are nice hi guys and like exiting a corner like this that was just i would have ended up right there in the bushes without all these changes so if you think your car is not really all that nice to drive maybe
Consider freshening everything up i’m going to close them up again so you can hear me a bit better what’s also really nice is that heel and toeing is really easy with a mini because the brake pedal and the throttle are really close together and the brake feel of the pedal is really really nice with these jcws because you have those big brakes with those big
Ass red brake calipers and they offer so much braking performance and feel never ever you have to give it like full brake pressure so i guess my front tires are nice and hot and we can do a measurement with our draggy gps box right here this little box i’m just going to put it on my roof there we go and that little device gives me a 10 hertz gps signal so that
Means i can do very very accurate measuring okay so it’s going to connect to the satellites and i have to engage sport mode don’t like to but i have to for maximum performance and what else do i have to do i’m going to completely turn off traction control so press it once you get sport mode but if you hold it down for what is it five seconds it says dsc off and
You don’t have any nanny interfering with your power output okay so i guess this is a nice place to test zero two hundred so i don’t do a lot of zero two hundreds in this car so hope i get it right it should do six 6.8 seconds let’s see if it’s capable of getting near that number going to give it a bit here we go it’s not reaching 100 in second gear i have to
Shift again ah that’s a pity thought it was pretty fast actually that launch here we go that’s too much wheelspin 7.7 seven point eight ah it’s the same story as with my last review i’m just not getting the numbers top speed was off by quite a lot with my last review on the autobahn with this car so i’m not too sure it has all the power it’s supposed to have
So yeah i guess that’s my focus for the future 7.7 7.8 that’s that’s just too slow all right guys that was it for today thank you for watching if you want one of these draggies with a 15 euro discount go and use code jcw and click right here to get one if you want to see another video click right here and subscribe by clicking right there thanks guys bye
Transcribed from video
My Mini Clubman JCW R55 REVIEW *MODS & COSTS* by AutoTopNL By AutoTopNL
