Jcw coupe - what do I need to know?

[pidsy]

Oddly tempted by one of these. They seem fairly rare and info on them on the web seems a bit sparse.

Would I get something decent for £13-14k?

Quiet part of PH it seems. Might be in part my slightly rubbish first post. So...

Looking to replace my m3 for something else - amongst other things, the mini coupe (has to be the proper jcw version though) has come up as something quite quirky.

As mentioned, I know nothing about minis at all and googling has only shown some reasonable reviews of the coupe but little else. One of the big mini owners boards last had a post in its coupe section in February. I'm guessing there aren't many around, based on the few for sale.

Anyone got one?

Edited by pidsy on Sunday 30th April 18:52

[pidsy]

Thanks for your reply. Gives plenty to go on - not an easy car to find out the ins and outs of.

[pidsy]

Cheers.

Found a guy with one just down the road.

I'm really in two minds.

[pidsy]

Cheers don.

The remarks are really hard to find as an option - most have the piped retro looks seats which I'm not keen on.

Did they only make them in white, silver, red and black?

[pidsy]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

Don phil messaged you last night

i haven't received anything from anyone. care to expand?

as for the burnt orange one above, i'm not sure about that particular colour but its nice to see a JCW in something other than the standard 4 colours. there are only 16 on auto trader (4 of those are convertibles) and all of them are red, white, silver or black.

the recaro's are really very nice looking - luckily, ive found a member on mini-torque who has one and im gonna go for a spin when i get some free time.

[pidsy]

Trustmeimadoctor said:

Fair enough my times all out of sync still anyway

Aha. Now I know what u meant.
I read it as he had messaged me.

[pidsy]

DapperDanMan said:

How can I tell whether the coupe has an N14 or N18 engine? Is it on the V5 engine number or in the vin? Is it something I can see by looking at the engine?

the N18 engine is from 2012 onwards. the N14 cars seem to be about £1k cheaper overall than the N18's.

the N14 "Death Rattle" can be worked around with a new tensioner but ive read a lot of chatter where the problem comes back.

[pidsy]

The members over on minitorque are very helpful. As far as I can tell, as there was never a "facelift" version launched, look for a 62 plate onwards.

[pidsy]

Steve, I'm still learning about these but I'm pretty sure that you aren't quite right.

The coupe jcw runs 208 bhp standard. They did use both engines and the n18 solved the issues of the previous version.

[pidsy]

still looking for a car with the Recaros fitted - real rocking horse poo those. mrs P really wants a black one too.

this could take some time to find.



thanks as always to those on this thread who have helped out.

[pidsy]

kayzee said:

Plenty of sets of Recaro's always coming up on eBay. Just retrofit some that's what I did.

how much??

[pidsy]

Thanks for getting bk to me. Everything I've seen is over a grand but we'll see what I can find when the time comes to look.

The M3 is currently having bits done ready to advertise. Then I'll be hunting proper.