Hello all,

New member from Florida but not new to minis. I have a 2013 Clubman S with 27k miles on it that I love, though as you can tell don't drive much.

Far as the advice to spouses, here goes my tale....... I had bought the Clubman S as I liked the extra hauling capacity. I own a nursery, and the sales are all online, figs (the fruiting plant) and an online forum for figs but i'm not sure if mentioning the name or URL is allowed here so won't During shipping season I need to go to the post office frequently and I can load the car up with the boxes and it can hold a LOT of boxes. All was well in my world till about 2 weeks ago.......my wife who drives a 2015 Honda CRV had never, not once driven or EVEN ridden in my Clubman. She is a bit of a timid driver and had no desire to drive it or ride in it so when we went anywhere together it was always me driving the Honda. Two weeks ago she leaves on a Saturday morning to do errands and was surprised to see her return about an hour later, much sooner than expected. It turns out her Honda died and would not restart while in the carwash, with a line of cars stuck behind her. I thought that was much funnier than she did. A nice person in a hummer gave the car a jump start and even gave her the jumper cables as he thought she should have a set.

Told the wife I would charge the battery and see what was the issue as the battery in the Honda was less than a year old. It turns out it was just a defective battery which the auto parts store replaced under the 2 year warranty. She did not like that it would take an hour to charge the battery and told me "but I have errands to run"? Told her she was welcome to take my Clubman S and she told me she did not want to, nor did she like my second suggestion which was to walk Anyway, she had no choice and relented and drove out in the Clubman, creeping up our LONG driveway at about 1.5 MPH. She returned home about 2 hours later doing about 40 MPH down the driveway and the first words issued were "I FREAKING love your car". It was at that point that I knew the world as I had known it had ended. For the next week I could not get her out of my car, if she left the house it was in MY car....... This could not stand. I have nothing against Hondas but that CRV is BORING. I knew the only option was to ask her if she might want to go Mini shopping to replace her Honda and she about flew out the door.

The ORIGINAL plan (at least in my head) was to buy a new Clubman S for me and she could have mine. It was only logical as my car is a 2013 and her Honda a 2015, right? Well most of you can probably figure out how far that plan made it. Soooo Saturday we ended up at a mini dealership and test drove a Clubman S and a 4 door hardtop S. She liked the 4 door hardtop S better, I liked the Clubman better so...yes we got the Hardtop 4 door S. The car is what I call cornea melting blue but I think Mini calls it electric blue. It actually is very pretty but I am still stinging over it is her car and not mine So we make a deal for the 4 door hardtop S in Iconic package and place our order and deposit.

Now we wait......because I have a mini already I could sign up at MiniUSA and of course she wanted to track her ordered car. Put in the production number and it shows it is a 2016 Countryman? I told her it was fine and that Mini probably reuses production numbers but she still had to call the poor salesman at the dealership and even his reassuring her did not help and she had to call MiniUSA on Monday morning to make sure it was all ok. The nice person there just said to give it a week to work itself out through the system.

In conclusion, never let your spouse drive your Mini......here I sit introducing myself, wife is gone and want to guess which car she is gone in??? Yep. It is going to be a LONG 6 - 8 weeks.

Wills

 

Welcome to North American Motoring. Congratulations on your spouse's new MINI

 

 

Welcome. Very funny

 

Welcome,
I have a kinda similar story. I wanted the Mini, wife said great, YOU by it as WE are not spending money on that. And now it is hers!

 

My wife likes driving awful cars. Hated (her words) my Miata, tolerates my R53. I guess maybe it's a good thing except I have to drive her cars sometimes.

Yeah, that would not fly in my world.

 

Good advice. This is one reason why I got a car with a manual transmission. I could see it in my wife's face when she saw the car that she wanted it. Then again the look on her face when she saw the manual shifter. She can drive a manual but doesn't like it. So, it's mine and will likely remain mine. At least for now.

BTW, whenever she is riding in the car I make the shifts just a little less smooth and give just a mild verbal complaint about how the shifting could be smoother in the car. (Don't tell her).

 

Congrats as we've heard similar stories and always great that they want one.

 

hahaha... great story.
I stick with manual transmission. First girl I meet that can drive a manual...I will probably marry her.

 

Yep. We've a two MINI garage. My '06 R52 and her '15 R60 W/auto gear box. She is still co-pilot when we take off on road trips in the drop head (can't keep her foot off the clutch).

 

Or, add a bunch of chassis strengthening, sparco seats, Remus catless exhaust system, Stage 2 map, along with a bunch of other mods and it gave me a Mini i love and a Mini that my sig other refuses to even sit in because it "too loud, seats are uncomfortable and it too fast"

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

 

+1 ^^

 

Lol! Great story to start my day!

In my house it's the opposite, I want to drive my wife's MINI! Although my wife sends me texts about how smooth my e46 BMW is when she drives it. But, yes, she drives a manual and wants to drive a manual. She and I met through a mutual car friend, so no boring cars around here! I'm just glad our daughter is old enough to climb in and out of the backseat in my wife's R53 on her own. That would have been miserable with an infant!

 

 

Thanks for that tale.

The opposite for me - back in 2003 my wife told me NOT to drive a friend's R53.

I did not listen, and now I am on my 4th Mini.

And divorced.

;-)

Cheers,

Charlie

 

LOL! My story is rather the opposite as well. My wife saw the Gen1 Minis in an advert for "The Italian Job" in '02 and was forever addicted. She got hers first in '08. I was the reluctant one, preferring my Toyota T100 pickup with 33" mud tires; a nice soggy ride that could climb a tree. Then we moved into a downtown metro area 6 years ago, and I realized that parking my truck took the equivalent of an aircraft landing strip. After that, I realized this smaller car would be far better in taking advantage of the 1/2 sized parking spots all over my block, so I bought one. And then I was hooked as well. Driving my R53 is sheer fun on any day. I don't yet have any handling upgrades and am still left grinning ear to ear every time I take a spirited drive, and then parallel park in a space that wouldn't fit any normal car.

The only problem now, is that any time I want an upgrade, I have to budget for 2. She won't let me get anything to make my car better without getting one for her as well. But really, this is the worst part of my marriage, so I consider myself a very lucky man indeed.

We motor hard....together.

 

Well she is on her way.........her production is set for the 12th though not sure if it will be built that day or done by that day. I asked her not to constantly bug the MA and she relented to emailing him to get the status code weekly which was down from her original "want" of emailing him hourly I have been having fun torturing her. Other day I told her "geez your car is not even built yet and there is already a recall". She said "OH NO WHY"! Told her the color, it was causing mass seizures. She was not amused.

 

 

Good luck to you! Make sure you get her the best one you can, or she'll probably still be stealing your JCW. If she's anything like my wife, that is...

 

Great story! I hope mine turns out exactly like yours. I just bought a '12 Chili-red MCS with a bad clutch. I've always loved a stick, where she doesn't. But I know she can drive one, so hopefully I'll get her behind the wheel soon and she'll find the joy.

 

Careful, she might find the joy, and you'll have to get another one for yourself!

Not exactly a bad thing, in my experience, but YMMV.

 

Fun story, Congrad's "Happy Wife Happy Life". My wife can drive a manual but doesn't care to anymore. She actually enjoy's the Pro exhaust on my Mini more than I do.