Best dealerships for Cooper S mods

[JayJay]

Hi guys,

I'm a newbie to the forum. Recently purchased a Midnight Black 2012 Cooper S. Fantastic car! I would like to personalise it a bit and since it's only 8 months old and still under warranty and motorplan will have to do everything through a dealer. Anyone have a connection at any of the dealers in Cape Town. I have requested a quote to have the JCW tuning kit, LED DRL and GP2 rear diffuser installed and have a quote of R50000 The labour alone is over R8000 excl VAT. Is Mini Mike still around? Or anyone who else who can give some advice on how I can get this done at a better price? Thanks so much.

 

[MikeBMW]

That sounds about right. When I installed my JCW kit on my R53 8 years ago it was slightly more than that.

 

[Coisman]

Hi guys,

I'm a newbie to the forum. Recently purchased a Midnight Black 2012 Cooper S. Fantastic car! I would like to personalise it a bit and since it's only 8 months old and still under warranty and motorplan will have to do everything through a dealer. Anyone have a connection at any of the dealers in Cape Town. I have requested a quote to have the JCW tuning kit, LED DRL and GP2 rear diffuser installed and have a quote of R50000 The labour alone is over R8000 excl VAT. Is Mini Mike still around? Or anyone who else who can give some advice on how I can get this done at a better price? Thanks so much.

Can't see how MiniMike would have been able to help you as he isn't bmw or Mini afiliated, and thus all his stuff done would have been non motorplan approved...

Going the dealership route has the advantage of you keeping the motorplan in tact, but unfortunately you pay for that...

Good luck anyway with whatever route you decide to take.

 

[JayJay]

Thanks for the info. I do know that the R53 upgrade was significantly more expensive than the R56 as it included a upgraded supercharger where the R56 upgrade is just new exhaust, intake, software and in some cases manifold.

May just do the visual upgrades immediately and then opt for the tuning kit in a few months when I'm tired of the performance. ..........have another car for the performance thrills. There in lies the problem though......don't think I can opt for form over function....may need to do the tuning kit first:joy: After all it's only money isn't it.....even if it's a hell of a lot of money!

What I really was looking for is if anyone knew if some dealers generally charge less for installation than others. I know the price per unit time is probably standard, but they quoted 83 units for the tuning kit which is 5.5hrs but on some if the uk forums members report 4 hrs labour.

 

[Cooper]

Why didn't you just buy the factory JCW one time? :fencelook:

 

[gothglue]

I'm busy having the tuning kit done at the moment. I asked Auto Atlantic if either of the air intake or the exhaust upgrades requires a ecu reflash and they said no, they'll only reflash the ecu if the engine itself gets modified. eg: pistons, head, etc...

I had the air intake upgrade done this week and they charged me just over R900 labour and quoted me around 4 hours labour for the exhaust.
Seeing as their hourly labour rate is R840, the difference in price between what they quoted you (ie: 5 hours) and the +-4 hours quoted on the UK forums isn't going to be much.

Thanks for the info. I do know that the R53 upgrade was significantly more expensive than the R56 as it included a upgraded supercharger where the R56 upgrade is just new exhaust, intake, software and in some cases manifold.

May just do the visual upgrades immediately and then opt for the tuning kit in a few months when I'm tired of the performance. ..........have another car for the performance thrills. There in lies the problem though......don't think I can opt for form over function....may need to do the tuning kit first:joy: After all it's only money isn't it.....even if it's a hell of a lot of money!

What I really was looking for is if anyone knew if some dealers generally charge less for installation than others. I know the price per unit time is probably standard, but they quoted 83 units for the tuning kit which is 5.5hrs but on some if the uk forums members report 4 hrs labour.

 

[JayJay]

The factory JCW is just too expensive for what it is. The Mini Cooper S itself is overpriced, but I got an incredible deal on a very low mileage, 8500km 2012 with lots of extras in like-new condition from the dealer and the best trade in offer on my Clio RS Gordini. The car is only 8 months old and I got about R95000 off the new price. So even with the mods I intend to do it will come in at considerably less than a bog standard Cooper S let alone a fJCW.

It just amazes me how the price on these kits have gone up. Just read a South African article from 2009 where the full JCW conversion including tuning kit, body kit, Brembo brakes, sport suspension and 18" JCW alloys and tyres came in at R32000!! Just the tuning kit is going to cost me R34000!