[lertulo]

Having read a dozen such reports from others while I waited (interminably!) for my new mini to be ready, I thought I'd give back by summarizing my findings so far.

The background: I'm a first-time Mini owner, and have only driven R56's: an MC-auto and MCS-manual, following which I bought and am now driving an MCS-auto. I am not, not a "car guy": when I started hearing about Torque Steer and Turbo Lag, I had to look up the terms and study the mechanisms involved to find out what in the !@#* was being discussed.

The car: exterior is black/black with 17" crown spokes; no sport suspension, but it is an S. Interior is tuscan beige gravity leather, piano black trim, cream white color line, lots of chrome bits. Lots of other little things too: xenons, front and rear fogs, auto AC, sunroof, arm rest, comfort access, cranberry sauce and mashed potatoes and so on. I've only had the car since early this evening, and the odometer hasn't yet clocked 100 miles (chores to do instead of driving).

The results:

Without even trying to enter the R53/R56 debate, I can say that--for my money anyway--MINI has really nailed this car. Keep in mind that I don't care if it's touchier or less touchy, has a higher or lower "belt line", or if the panel gaps are or aren't 1/4" wider here or there. Instead, here's what's struck me as impressive:

• The steering is incredibly firm and solid. My trade-in was a New Beetle (far too much shop-time) and our "family car" is a Saturn wagon (a good car!--but, it's like driving while half-asleep). In comparison, the MINI's handling makes you wonder if either of those is actually a car rather than a boat. The steering feels incredible--like you could almost teleport from one lane to another. And yet it doesn't feel twitchy: the car confidently keeps moving where I had last pointed it, even with cross-wind, sharp turns, acceleration, braking...
• I'm still well inside the "break-in" period for the engine, so I'm trying (hard, honest!) to take it easy on the throttle. But even with that restriction, the get-up-and-go of the Cooper S is simply phenomenal. I had read a review that described the oomph that the car offers as like being yanked down the street by an aggressive dog on a leash; I don't think that's accurate at all. Reminds me more of sitting in a helicopter, and having God reach down and yank my seat up into the air. Here, I think he's pushing.
• There's a lot of concern on the boards about the interior of the R56--particularly the center stack. I too think that the inability to install an aftermarket head unit is remarkably dumb... BUT, frankly, I really like the built-in unit. (FWIW, I'm in the US and therefore have the Boost radio.) I've heard complaints that it was confusing or weirdly laid out, but I didn't have any trouble at all: I turned on the radio for the first time while at a stop light, inserted an MP3 CD and experimented for 20 seconds. That's all it took to get the bass and treble laid out the way I wanted, to get the CD playing, shuffle mode engaged, the track list showing--and even have time along the way to check out the pre-programmed radio stations, visit the on-board computer's radio integration area (cool idea!) and so on. The wide radio display is really well used, making navigation easy even in ignorance. Moreover, the plastic backing on the center stack is black in this car--is that a result of the piano black trim, or the beige "interior world" I wonder? I thought it was normally gray. Anyway, it actually looks just fine here; I was expecting to cringe at it, the way I did in the two R56s that I test-drove earlier. The automatic A/C controls, done in grey plastic, do look cheap in comparison to the rest of the interior--but only in comparison, mind you: they'd look better than fine sitting in my previous car.
• Read this very carefully: not one, not one rattle. None. No plastic rulers twanging, no "water running" sounds under the seats, no vibrating start buttons. This car gives every impression of being a miniature Lexus. Now I know it's just 100 miles young, but this is such a common theme here that I've been listening hard for trouble--and it just ain't there.
• After all the talk about the interior materials being so nice, one poster asked, "which ones? Why?"--and no one had responded. I'll start: the freaking gravity leather seats are so lucious that I want to lick them. In fact, I may go do that right now. The steering wheel has a wonderful touch to it: it's firm and dry, but still just yielding and tacky enough to give you a good grip. The piano black and chrome make a wonderful combination, and I love how the black theme has been continued elsewhere (I had feared seeing too much gray, which I think would've been a poor choice in this car).
• I've heard lots of scary talk about wind noise from the sunroof. My trade-in had a small sunroof, with a wind deflector to help shut down its noise. This new car has less wind noise than my trade-in did even with its deflector. And it's a nasty, cold, cross-windy day out here. I've opened and closed the sunroof many times, just to play with the controls and to expose myself early to any first-opening-induced noises--not one problem. Again, I seem to be coming back to quality: this car clearly has it.
• Road noise is much lower than I'd expected, given that it's got 17" factory runflats. People on the boards have been griping about this; I don't know what road noise standard they're used to, but they should try the New Beetle. <<shiver>>
• Comfort access is completely addictive. Walk up to a locked car, grab the boot and pull upwards--and up it goes. Insert stuff, close boot and walk away--car is still locked. My God, did we really have to use keys for that kind of stuff before? Barbarians!
• I'm sorry, but I can't feel any significant change in the steering when the sport button goes on. I'm just not enough of a car guy, I guess. But the automatic, now... the automatic takes the sport button like a shot of adreneline. The transmission goes from being a relaxed, calm, sedately-shifting cruiser to an aggressive, nimble, enthusiastic performer. And here's the thing: I can think of times when I'll enjoy having both of those modes available. I'm therefore really glad to have the choice.

Okay, but it can't be all wine and roses, right?

• As you've already heard, the center armrest isn't worth buying. Its storage compartment is half the capacity of the equivalent armrest in the New Beetle--just barely big enough for a garage fob and a case for my sunglasses. Just barely. But more importantly, it's weak: I'm under 140 pounds, but if I lean on it at all, its supporting arm bends and it drops by a good 1-2". It's further too far back to really be useful as a convenient resting spot for an elbow. And the supporting arm in the back really obscures the central rear-seat cupholder--making that almost useless. And it just about entirely occludes the seatback lumbar controls, which is dumb. I'll probably be pulling out the wrench soon and just yanking this thing out.
• The tach is mounted at just the wrong spot, so that no matter how you maneuver the steering wheel and driver's seat, you'll never see the top of the tach. Ever. I don't even know if there is a top to the tach--they could've left it off to save money, and no one would ever have noticed.
• The rear seats are surprisingly deep. This might be an optical illusion from the material, but they look about 6" too deep to be normal. And that depth comes at a nasty price: adjust the front seats to where your legs are really comfy, and the front seats instantly touch the rear seats--the rear seat passengers would have to sit cross-legged, since there is no way to get your legs down there. Fortunately for my kids, I'm used to driving kind of squished-forward (since my wife is shorter, and the seat is usually adjusted for her). But the rear leg room is really laughable normally.
• The boot is even smaller in capacity than the New Beetle's. I normally tote around two duffel bags of martial arts gear after class; in my old car, they'd go in the boot side-by-side with a little space for groceries. In this car, they have to go one-atop-the-other; that fills the boot, with just enough space for a gallon of milk on the side. Not as space-efficient as I'd hoped back there, but hey--if you wanted trunk space, why'd you buy a MINI?
• The after-you-shut-off fan sound from the engine compartment (what was that? I've heard it explained several times, so I know it's normal) is surprisingly loud, and so far seems to run for about 2 minutes. It's so loud, actually, that I've twice wondered if I actually failed to turn off the car correctly and accidentally left the engine running. The sound seems mechanically normal--it's not scraping or rattling or anything, just a pleasant smooth hum--but it's loud.

Notice that the Good Things are all about important stuff--good engine, good handling, good quality--and the Bad Things are about, oh, the $200 add-on arm-rest, or the car being small in some metrics. If that's the only kind of stuff I can find to complain about, I think this car is a remarkable achievement.

A few other tidbits for the curious:

• The secret compartment is fully functional, and perfectly silent. I guess they fixed that.
• The hood scoop has one of every three columns of honeycombs pass-through, and the other two-thirds blocked out. The honeycomb is clearly cast-plastic; the blockage isn't something that you're going to remove with a phillips-head and two minutes' time, unless you're going to remove the honeycomb entirely.
• To the passenger-side of the center console, down on the floor, there's a small stretchy net strung. This is a great convenience, and yet another well-thought-out touch.
• It's a nasty cold day here, but I still haven't heard anything even approaching the reported "diesel-like" noise on startup. The engine sound is invariably smooth and taut, whether right after start or accelerating through 80mph.
• My wife, who described the New Beetle as a "lawn mower" for its ride, thinks this car is better but still too rough. (Keep in mind that she drives a luxury station wagon most of the time, and be nice.) I believe MINI has done a great job of picking a compromise between plain old driving comfort, and nimble handling--much firmer (say, if I added sport suspension) and I think the Pennsylvania roads would start to annoy me, and much more relaxed and I think the handling would suffer. In short, right where I hoped they'd land it--good job, MINI!

[AndyP]

Wow! What a fantastic report. Soooo good hear someone so delighted with their car. We've gone for a similar spec with the center arm rest, piano black and chrome interior, etc. And ours is an Auto box too - well, it will be when it arrives. Ours is bogged down in production hell, with the latest production estimate of 14th May (was supposed to be 16th March!)

So, many thanks for sharing all that. Great to read, and encouraging.

A.

[bugiz]

Sweet write-up buddy, kudos!!

[steeve]

Hey good write up for a "non-car" type of guy.

[shedend]

Great write up mate.....enjoy putting some more miles on your car

[jmelrose]

I'm getting my MCSa tomorrow... this writeup makes me even MORE excited! Thanks!! Well-written. I plan to do a similar type of commentary on NAM after I've had a few days to do some motorin'.

[MaTTy_P]

Very good read, very non-biased review and quite informative.

You don't happen to work as a journalist given the quality of your writing do you?

[lertulo]

Flatterer. I'm a computer programmer, actually. And it's hard to be completely non-biased when I'm quickly falling in love with my car.

[Lil_Mini]

Hi lertulo,
I'm also like you. No rattles, nothing. Just sometimes the engine sounds loud but I think that's the turbo power. But I'm a little bit lucky as I got to test drive in a Mini with the arm rest, so I was able to see how it was a bit annoying to have instead of being useful.

My only complaint is that although the manual says I can add a chirp when locking or unlocking, there isn't an option for it in the OBC.

[mmalc]

Quote: Originally Posted by Lil_Mini (original)

No rattles, nothing. Just sometimes the engine sounds loud but I think that's the turbo power. But I'm a little bit lucky as I got to test drive in a Mini with the arm rest, so I was able to see how it was a bit annoying to have instead of being useful.

I'm now up to almost 500 miles in an MCa. Thus far also no rattles etc. I opted for the Convenience package, though -- I wanted the armrest with the BlueTooth phone connector (it'll be handy when I get an iPhone later in the year ). It doesn't seem as sturdy as I would perhaps like, but I haven't yet found it to be a significant annoyance.

mmalc

[Lil_Mini]

Quote: Originally Posted by mmalc (original)

I'm now up to almost 500 miles in an MCa. Thus far also no rattles etc. I opted for the Convenience package, though -- I wanted the armrest with the BlueTooth phone connector (it'll be handy when I get an iPhone later in the year ). It doesn't seem as sturdy as I would perhaps like, but I haven't yet found it to be a significant annoyance.

mmalc

Oooh, I would like hear what you think of the iphone when you receive it. How interesting!

[mmalc]

Quote: Originally Posted by Lil_Mini (original)

Oooh, I would like hear what you think of the iphone when you receive it. How interesting!

Oh, I doubt there will be any shortage of people offering their opinion
Discussion, though, would go to the Techy Stuff, Computers & Gaming forum.

mmalc