It was a fully-imported R56 model from Oxford, U.K.,which was brought into Malaysia by Auto Bavaria in 2007. The exterior color was sparkling silver with a black roof on top while the interior came with cream beige nappa leather seats. It had a 143,000 km mileage on it at the time of my purchase. It had the classic Mini speedometer in the middle which is one of my favorite Mini iconic designs. After a short test drive session, I decided to put a 10% downpayment on the car with 90% loan from Public Bank. The car's price was RM56,000, so after adding insurance and processing fee was RM60,000 on the road for the Mini. It came with a 1 year smart warranty. After bringing the car back home, I decided to name the car Mr. Sparkle due to its sparkling silver color.
Long story short, the car had many mechanical issues. I admit that I did not do enough research on the R56 pre-facelift's prince engines, which were plagued with many issues. The main issue that annoyed me the most was the 6 speed gearbox, which had trouble shifting from 3rd gear to 4th gear occasionally. Undoubtedly, the car's performance was lightning fast which never failed to amaze me when I stepped on the throttle. Handling was superb as well, I can drive it like a go kart through heavy traffic. For the gearbox repair, I spent about RM4,500 even after claiming the third-party warranty. The total repair bill in the invoice shown was close to RM10,000 for the gearbox. The other issue was the steering lock ECU, which costed me about RM1.5k to replace. Moreover, there were a lot of oil leaks from the engine's valve cover, which costed me a bomb to repair. Mr Sparkle was one of the earlier batches of R56, which I believed it was why the car had so many problems.
After two years of ownership, I realized that no matter how much I liked Mr. Sparkle, it was a money pit machine which would had continued to cost me lots of money. Thus, I decided to say goodbye to Mr. Sparkle. I sold it for RM50,000 cash through Mudah.my to a middle-aged Malay couple from Kelantan. They flew all the way from Kota Bahru to KL to purchase the car. Thankfully, they managed to drive the car back to Kelantan without any issues.
Mr Sparkle, you will be in fond memory as you were the first class that I bought with my hard-earned money.
