MINI2 - MINI Forum - View Single Post - Taking testdrive on nov 4th, will post back

Spookyfish · Nov 4th, 2003, 02:23 PM

OK! We had our scheduled test drive today. Here's how it went:

I went first, through the city. Stop and go traffic is smooth. Much smoother than I manage in my current car (it's a manual). There is some yo-yo at 15km/h as others have noticed, but nothing too bad. The truth is that an automatic with a torque converter wouldn't have this effect.

Then my girlfriend took the drivers seat. She is 5'1" and hated the sport seats at first. The lumbar support was somewhere 'up her shoulders'. She hated the whole car now. Later on, when we switched places again, we gave it 'one last try'. We positioned the backrest in a much more upright position and the problem was eliminated. Bottom line: the lumbar support is a bit pronounced and requires a carefully selected seating position.

Acceleration is plenty in D. Somewhat noisy in SD when you floor it just before kickdown. Kickdown is a little weird. Kickdown does not drop a number of gears at once but smoothly revs towards 6000rpm and then demonstrates it's shifting behaviour.

Onramp acceleration is also plenty and highway speeds of 170km/h are easily achieved. Noise is minimal. The car has about 250km on the odometer so I didn't push it any further. I think the revs at 120km/h are about 3200rpm, which is excellent. When you accelerate from 120km/h the revs go up alot in D, more so than when driving 50km/h. This makes sense but gives a slightly uncomfortable drive (like I stole it). This can be avoided by driving the car in 6th gear, but I don't get an automatic for that. You can't apply full throttle and get full torque in D or SD.

Then the steptronic function. A bit weird and somewhat slow in response. May take some getting used to and I will probably only use it for downhill braking. I did try a 1-D-SD launch and either nobody was trying or they really couldn't keep up. Not sure if I need the EUR 70 steering wheel paddles.

The 175/65R15 P3000 tires held up pretty well (the temperature is about 9C) but screamed under hard cornering. It did an offramp at 85km/h (on the digital speedo) where my current car understeers at a little less on 185/55R15 P6000 shoes.

So much for now. I really like the car for it's looks, driving position, gearbox and such. But I do need to get a good deal on this car. I will talk to my sales manager later this week (he was out today).

Nov 4th, 2003, 02:23 PM	#3
Spookyfish I'm probably out motoring Join Date: Oct 2003 Location: Overijssel Local Time: 08:14 PM Posts: 397 Offline	OK! We had our scheduled test drive today. Here's how it went: I went first, through the city. Stop and go traffic is smooth. Much smoother than I manage in my current car (it's a manual). There is some yo-yo at 15km/h as others have noticed, but nothing too bad. The truth is that an automatic with a torque converter wouldn't have this effect. Then my girlfriend took the drivers seat. She is 5'1" and hated the sport seats at first. The lumbar support was somewhere 'up her shoulders'. She hated the whole car now. Later on, when we switched places again, we gave it 'one last try'. We positioned the backrest in a much more upright position and the problem was eliminated. Bottom line: the lumbar support is a bit pronounced and requires a carefully selected seating position. Acceleration is plenty in D. Somewhat noisy in SD when you floor it just before kickdown. Kickdown is a little weird. Kickdown does not drop a number of gears at once but smoothly revs towards 6000rpm and then demonstrates it's shifting behaviour. Onramp acceleration is also plenty and highway speeds of 170km/h are easily achieved. Noise is minimal. The car has about 250km on the odometer so I didn't push it any further. I think the revs at 120km/h are about 3200rpm, which is excellent. When you accelerate from 120km/h the revs go up alot in D, more so than when driving 50km/h. This makes sense but gives a slightly uncomfortable drive (like I stole it). This can be avoided by driving the car in 6th gear, but I don't get an automatic for that. You can't apply full throttle and get full torque in D or SD. Then the steptronic function. A bit weird and somewhat slow in response. May take some getting used to and I will probably only use it for downhill braking. I did try a 1-D-SD launch and either nobody was trying or they really couldn't keep up. Not sure if I need the EUR 70 steering wheel paddles. The 175/65R15 P3000 tires held up pretty well (the temperature is about 9C) but screamed under hard cornering. It did an offramp at 85km/h (on the digital speedo) where my current car understeers at a little less on 185/55R15 P6000 shoes. So much for now. I really like the car for it's looks, driving position, gearbox and such. But I do need to get a good deal on this car. I will talk to my sales manager later this week (he was out today).