The Purring Mini Cooper Engine

As a Mini Cooper owner, I can confirm that everything youve heard about how fun it is to drive is absolutely true. The car handles like it is on rails, but also has a surprising amount of spunk given its size. This is due to the maxed out engine.

The Mini comes in various models ranging from the basic hard top known as the Mini Cooper to a convertible and a Clubman which tries to be a car for four people. Each comes with a sport version that has a more powerful engine. There is also a JCW Mini. The JCW stands for John Cooper Works. Cooper was a Formula One and rally car builder associated with the company in the 1960s.

Regardless of the model of Mini you have, it has an inline 4 cylinder 1.6 liter engine. Many people assume this engine is a BMW model since Beemer owns the Mini brand. The engine carries the BMW name, but it was a Toyota model in the early years of this decade and now is based on a Peugeot in the 2008 and forward models. The reason for this appears to be the simply fact BMW didnt have much experience building tiny engines that punched out big power. Toyota and particularly Peugeot did.
The engine in the Mini Cooper is normally aspirated in the base models. The S versions come with a turbocharger. The models of the first half of the decade had a supercharger instead of a turbocharger. Regardless, this is a little engine that can. Although it is small, the forced air system pushes the horsepower on the S versions into the middle 170s with the JCW versions popping up over 200. For such a small, light car, that is a lot of power.

The title of this article references the purring engine. Any Mini owner knows full well this is a joke. Although the engine has a lot of punch, it sounds like it has been in a brawl with a bit Mercedes engine. The thing literally sounds like one of those old diesel Mercedes your grandmother drove. It clicks. It knocks. It basically makes an unholy racket when it is idling. I actually went back to the dealer and listened to other cars on the lot that prospective buyers were starting up to make sure my car didnt have a p roblem. All of them make the racket and it is normal.

The Mini Cooper is not the fastest car on the road. A MazdaSpeed 3 will blow it away. The Mini is, however, plenty fast enough thanks to a little engine that sounds like diesel, but performs like puma.

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