Hi all,

I tend to tell long stories, so I'll do my best to keep this one short. Bought an 05 MCS back in September of 05 for my at the time finance, now wife. This past summer, my Mazda Protege5 I got in 01 had something wrong with one of the pistons. It was my first car/project car, so there were a lot of things wrong with it. We decided it would be better to get a new car rather than fix it. Since we plan to have kids soon we sought out for a family style car. One of the requirements was for it to be an automatic. I hate automatic, plus she has to deal with traffic, so she got the new car, I took the Mini. I don't care if it's technically a hand me down, I love it!

So, now we got our wedding and pre-wedding bills payed off, which freed up some cash for the Mini! Thats what brings me here. I want to be part of this community to give any help I can, and ask for help when I need it. Maybe meet some local Mini enthusiasts at the same time!

Sorry if this ended up to be too long.

 

Welcome...I'm also new.
I own a Protege and am expecting my MINI at the end of January. How does the driving experience (between the two cars) compare? And are you in the market for another MINI, or something else?

 

It's hard for me to describe any differences between the two cars. I had the Protege5 for 6 years and knew what I could do on every turn. I'm comfortable in the Mini, but haven't really pushed it yet. In the Protege5, sometimes I felt the back end was going to slip out if i pushed it any harder. With the Mini, I sometimes feel like it's going to roll. I also had an Injen intake on the Protege5 which made the engine really loud, and sound faster than the Mini, but not even close. I like the acceleration of the Mini, and love the whine of the supercharger. The supercharger in my friends Lighting is insanely loud with the mods hes done. I don't think the Mini can get that loud, but I'm going to get as close as possible, within budget reasoning. In the end, the Mini is funner. The Protege5 served it's purpose and was a good first car.

We are no longer in the market for a new car, and another Mini wasn't on the list. I wanted to wait for the Clubman, but she didn't like the look, and I didn't know how much longer my car had until there was more damage. So we got an 07 Volvo S60, which is really nice. Just not as fun as the Mini

Hope this helps.