Saturday morning we make the 150 mile trip from Atlanta to Greenville to pick up my MINI (MC, PW/Black, Prem, Sport, chrome mirrors). The trip up seemed to take forever but we finally arrived. We take care of the paperwork, get a quick but complete orientation of the car and I'm off! The 150 miles back flew by! I'm still smiling. Some observations:

1. I am still amazed at the stuff that MINI packs into these cars for the money. The little lights in the headliner, console, and door handles are really cool at night. The puddle lamps on the bottoms of the doors were a surprise too. Just way too much to mention here, but for a few dollars over $20k, I am amazed at what this car has.

2. FUN! I have never had such fun driving in my life. This thing is go-kart with air conditioning.

3. Henk and Max at Century MINI in Greenville, SC are amazing. They made the entire experience drama free and fun. Even threw in some MINI Smints, can coozies, and a CD holder. Nice little surprises. Both of these guys really know these cars too.

I'm not sure if my car looks more like a Panda or a hamster and I have not named it yet.

Question for you all who are in the know: My car is a 2/05 build. What changes happened beginning with 1/05 build cars?

I am digging every minute with my MINI.

Chris

 

Congrats and happy motoring!

 

What he/she said.

You will love it. Will have had my MCS 2 years next month and we went on about a 700 mile drive this weekend and had a ball. I can tell you a bunch of Great people own MINIs.

Earl

 

Congrats and a big Yayyy!!! Glad to see you are enjoying your MINI experience so far.....MANY MORE TO COME!!!

Donna
02' CR/W MCS (gone to MINI heaven)
05' Cool Blue MCSC

 

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Congratulations and welcome!

I also picked up my new 2005 MCS one week ago and have put only 150 miles on it (Been extremely busy) but it has been an absolute blast.

My MCS is also a 2/05 build. The most noticeable production change made to cars made since January 1st, 2005, is the new active airbags. Notice the new "Passenger side airbag" light nestled in between your front overhead map lights and LED ambient lights. The front passenger seat now has weight sensors that help determine the computer how much force and speed need to set the airbags in case of deployment, according to body weight. Also if no one is seated in the front passenger seat, the computer automatically deactivates the front passenger airbag.

However, the passenger airbag can not be deactivated manually on a permanent basis. That remains an Europe only option on MINIs sold there.

Because of the new active/dual-stage airbags, you can not use seat covers because these can hamper the proper functioning of the detection mechanism. Also the seats now feature slight changes to the bottom cushion (Both standard and sport seats).

Also since the month of January, LSD (Manual trans MCS equipped cars only) and the Aisin 6-speed automatic transmission in the MCS became available as options.

That's basically it. Oh and before I forget, if you ordered the 3-spoke MFSW, now you have two extra useless buttons in the left spoke. One button has a pictogram of a telephone headpiece and the other one says "R/T". According to my MA, these buttons are for hands free phone options not yet sold in the US market, but for some reason MINI has deemed appropiate to put them in there even if there currently serve no purpose.

 

I believe your build also has the amber light on the tip of the windshield wiper stalk which alerts you to low washer fluid which wasn't available in earlier builds. Nice feature!