Daily Driver Help!

[LesMurray]

My other car is a MINI - love that car and it always makes me smile when I drive it.

Since you are in MA, go talk to Pete at Greasy's Garage in Worcester. This is the guy in NE for MINIs. In fact, he has just fixed one up and will be selling it soon.

The best year for MINIs is '06 - last year for the R53. The new R56 model engines just suck. Since I bought my '05 I have been slowly modding it from 180HP up to over 200. Maintenance is not bad, especially when compared to Porsche, and again, Pete is the guy when you need to get it fixed.

PM me if you have any questions on MINIs. I can give you some good hints.

Also, check out Mass Motoring club website as well. Great group of guys.

[hp12c]

I also have a MINI Cooper S (2006) as my daily driver and it is great. My commute is about 15 miles each way and for that distance it is perfect. That said, if you have a long all-highway commute I think it might wear on you - the MINIs are fairly high-strung and not that comfortable just droning along on the interstate. And as been said before, $5-7K won't get you a good example if you can find one at all in that price range. I'm going to side with the others who are thinking "winter beater" and for the money a Subaru AWD is hard to beat for economy and fun.