Changing your MINI’s oil
MINIs have high revving turbo engines (at least most of them have turbos or superchargers) and so are particularly brutal on engine oil. Dirty oil, low oil, and restricted oil filters can all cause serious damage to these little engines. One of the first tips I ever received from a MINI expert about my brand new MINI was that if you wanted it to last, change the oil twice as often as they recommend.
Now I have to admit when it was brand new I just let them change it when it was time, after all, the maintenance was free all I had to do was bring it in. After about the first year I was told this little tip by several people who have had more MINIs than some dealers (just kidding) so I started changing my oil in between dealership oil changes.
Now that I am well outside of that free maintenance I change the oil two times for every cycle. I do that by resetting the oil life after an oil change which resets to 9000 miles. I then wait until it gets around 4500 miles left and change it again without resetting the oil life indicator. Finally, I change it when it gets close to zero and reset the oil life indicator.
I also tend to use very good oil, Penzoil full synthetic for euro vehicles.
As of this writing, I am less than 2,000 miles from 100,000 miles total and have had no engine issues other than a small leak from the oil filter bracket which was repaired under warranty. I will count that as a win.
