[nynidan]

I live in NYC and keep my car in a garage. The guys that park the cars fiddle with the seats and mirrors EVERY DAY. My wish for the 2003 Cooper S I have on order is Electric Seat adjustment with memory and memory for the mirrors. My Mercedes has it and it is the biggest luxury. One press and everthing is back the way you like it. BMW, please, please, please.

The only other thing would be a larger rearview mirror and CVT as an option. An hour in 4mph traffic and driving with a clutch gets old. I have been looking into Recaro seats as an option just in case.

[Wynn]

Hmm, that'd be a nice option, I suppose, though I rather like the simplicity of a mechanical (not motorized) seat, and the weight savings for performance advantage. That said, I think more options is always a good thing.

My wish list, in order of preference, for interior changes on the Cooper S in the new year:

1) Red interior option, or red/black leather; wow.
2) Improved cup holder(s); larger with more room. ...Bruce K is going to lecture me again on how trivial this is, I just know it. <grin!>
3) More dash options, which apparently we're getting!
4) Stereo AUX input for iPod et al... and we're apparently getting this, too! HOORAY!

wynn

[AidenL]

For me...........

Red / Black leather, and red carpets !!!

[nynidan]

Hint, hint.

[Johnboy]

Sorry, have to disagree - They are nice options, but I don't see place for them on the MINI...
Electric seats would be heavy - and imagine getting the motors to fit under the seat (at it's lowest setting)....

A less error-prone seat mech. would be really welcome though... Something more akin to that in the Peugeot 206 - Which mech. looks suspiciously similar, but works in a much smoother and consistent manner.... But keep the MINI style seat levers.

As for the rear view - It did, at first, appear too small - but what you have to bear in mind is that it seems to me to be perfectly angled to view the whole of the back window - if it were "bigger" you'd just see more of the pillars at the rear!

[Mini1380]

How about these options, but not neccesarily in any order of preference.

1. Telescoping steering wheel. Moves in and out along with the up and down.
2. More power (HP). Who couldn't use more power.
3. Close in the sides of the area below the bank of switches and behind the cig lighter so that stuff could be put there.
4. Programming gizmo/interface so that owners could play with the programable features, without having to go to the dealership.

[Johnboy]

Interesting - Okay - probably moving off into fantasy land now, but along the same lines... I wonder how much an interface to the ECU would cost as a purchasable extra?

If you could plug it up to your home PC, or straight to a modem after downloading your ECU programmable options and engine diagnostics, it would allow people to get their cars checked out or updated electronically by the dealers, without a monster round-trip to the dealer itself - esp. useful for you guys in the US or "down under".

You could leave your module plugged to your phone line and your dealer could dial your house to download the info.

It would work all-round, as your dealer would save time not having to book cars in and out, they'd not have to issue courtesy cars, not have the usual car-pick-up rush after and before work etc. The benefits would be endless!

The roadside mechanics could potentially use such a tool too - unless of course they have one already.

[nynidan]

Depending on how the seats are made I am not sure that electric would be heavier. More expensive yes, heavier is debatable. Recaro makes some great electric seats and they are not that heavy. Hey, you can always tear out the passenger seat and replace it with a cushion to save weight.

;-)

That's a great idea, Johnboy. For many of us in the US, distance and time to the dealership is a problem. In Wisconsin, there is only one dealer. Same thing in Minnesota. Then there's the Texas thing.

Doing periodic maintenance checks through the internet is brilliant. What a huge time saver.

[ches]

Quote:

Originally posted by Wynn
2) Improved cup holder(s); larger with more room. ...Bruce K is going to lecture me again on how trivial this is, I just know it. <grin!>

I'd have to second the motion on the cup holders. The front ones are just about useless. I keep my phone in one and my work badge in the other.

The other interior thing I'd like to see them redesign: the door pockets. They're beautiful but totally impractible. They could keep the opening ovalish, but make the floor of it more rectangular. It would also be nice to raise or remove the horizontal piece as it makes it just about impossible to fish CD cases out of the door pockets.

[Marts]

I've got to go with Aiden on the red carpets.... I used to love them in my 205..

[noahe]

Quote:

Originally posted by nynidan
I live in NYC and keep my car in a garage. The guys that park the cars fiddle with the seats and mirrors EVERY DAY.

Those are pretty crappy parking attendants or valets. On the few occasions I have used valet parking with the old car(not letting anyone drive the MINI yet) not one of them changed a single setting. Seat, mirrors, nothing. I think they're pretty much instructed not to fidget with a single control, unless they absolutely need to, like move the seat a little to reach the pedals/squeeze in.

The car is great as-is... Your attendants are crap.

Anyways, just my opinion... Maybe you could complain to the garage management?

[BruceK]

Long ago, I was a parking valet. At 6'2" tall I was often forced to fiddle with seat adjustments just to fit in the cars (I used to dread when I had to park a Cadillac as the power seat controls - relatively rare at that time - took precious, tip earning, seconds to adjust ).

Perhaps the MINI's seats and mirrors are being adjusted just to drive and park the car safely?

[noahe]

I'm all for 'safe'... But truly, the valets are instructed not to fiddle with the cars. This means don't touch the radio, HVAC, mirrors, tilt wheel. If you do move the seat, try to estimate where it was, and put it back.

These guys were also quite adept at swinging ludicrously large, luxury barges, at high speed, into small parking spots. They didn't have an accident, or use the mirrors, becuase they were accustomed to it.

The tips were larger when the cars were returned in the same state as they were dropped off in, even if an extra few seconds were needed to put the seat forward and back again.

Anyways, of course, you're right. I'd rather re-adjust my controls if the valet was unsure about driving the car with improperly adjusted mirrors or whatever...

[ches]

Quote:

Originally posted by BruceK
Long ago, I was a parking valet. At 6'2" tall I was often forced to fiddle with seat adjustments just to fit in the cars

Wow, same here. I valet parked in high school and college, made pretty good money, too. Not that there was ever any official valet training, but I was never told not to move a customer's seat. Sometimes I just had to, just to be able to get in. I would do my best to put it back, but it's not easy to guess somebody else's seat position.

Scariest car I ever parked: Lamborghini Countach S. Could not see out of the damn thing, and stalled it three times to boot. Tricky clutch!

Anyway, you might try saying "please try not to move the seat" to the garage attendant.

[AidenL]

Quote:

Originally posted by Marts
I've got to go with Aiden on the red carpets.... I used to love them in my 205..

Looked great Marts, I always loved the 205GTis..did you have a 1.6, or a 1.9?

[cooper4us]

1) Would love to see a driver's power seat with memory settings for 2 or 3 drivers. My wife is shorter, so everytime I go to drive the car I have to readjust the seat and all the mirrors. I am getting used to it, but how better would be to have a button with "His" and "Hers" settings. (I know a second MINI would solve the issue )

2)Homelink remote garage door opener: We have this in our other car as standard equipment and it is great. Most cars in the US offer the Homelink remotes as factory equipment. The controller can be easily fitted inside the driver's side sunvisor. In our other car, the Homelink is integrated into the trip computer overhead console, pretty neat.

3) Automatic on/off headlights. Our other car (Yes a Chevrolet) has them and believe them they work wonders. I never touch the headlight switch on that car, ever.

3) Small center console with a padded armrest and a coin holder.

4) Bigger rearview mirror (I am already used to it)

The rest of the interior is perfect, IMO.

[johnlummis]

Hi Everybody, I think you guys across the pond must have bigger standard cup sizes than here in europe,because a small m'cD's coffee cup fits perfectly in the front holders and virtually everything goes into the rear holder.

[Wynn]

Yeah, we tend to have huge drinks in the U.S.; maybe it's absurd. Nevertheless, the cupholder in a MINI is almost useless to us, and it's one of my few real complaints about the car. Virtually everyone else figured out almost ten years ago how to include a cup holder to accommodate a McDonald's soft drink, but unless you get that coffee, you're out of luck here in a MINI. Even tea and juice and stuff in bottles here comes in glass that won't fit even the rear cup holder in a MINI. Surely it wouldn't be difficult for them to change that.

Even at the cost of undermining some of the clean, cool aesthetic of the MINI's interior, I would like to see MINI redesign the space between the front seats to accommodate an arm rest, storage space, and a large cup holder, even if for just one cup.

That said, I think the interior is otherwise BRILLIANT, and I'm really hopeful that I can order and S next year with the fantastic red interior currently available on the Cooper. Sweet! It's SO COOL with anthracite trim!

[Big]

My wish for 2003 --- Hmmm? Let me see. How about BMW/MINI getting the facts straight on when all of the speculated items will be released. DVD NAV or CD Rom NAV, HK or N/A, RainSensor or N/A (or posed w/ additional delays), Sport Steering Wheel or no Sport Steering Wheel and finally all aluminum pedals or the one aluminum dead pedal and the rest black rubber. This would be my wish to find out the truth and the release dates to the supposed additions to the 2003 model.

Enough w/ the gripes. I wouldn't mind having the lumbar support option available w/ the leatherette seats.