Originally Posted by itsmeagain

I have test driven a two non S Countryman and both seem to drive a little different. One did require a lot of movement of the throttle before things started to happen; the second was just the opposite and felt much more responsive. The first Countryman had only a few miles on it and had not been driven recently, motor was still cold; the second had almost 50 miles and just came back from a test drive so everything was warmed up and ready to go. I think the Mini has the same throttle like my Mercedes ML-500 had. It was what is known as a learning throttle. Most all new cars do not have a cable connecting the throttle peddle to the throttle body. When you push down on the throttle it send information to the computer that then uses an electric connection to the throttle body that opens the throttle. When I first got my ML the throttle was not very responsive, in fact I could push the throttle all the way to the floor, let up and the car would not move; but after driving it the computer learned how I like to drive and adjusted accordingly. I don’t think what you are feeling is a lag in the engine responding, I think it is a lag in the computer trying to interpret what you want to do. I also think that is why the sport button make the car more responsive.

Originally Posted by Ragnar4841

So I got my Non-S CM back from the dealer today after they did a full software update to correct an issue in monitoring brake pad wear. The car seems slower now. I'm wondering if the "learning" throttle (or similar concept) has some truth to it and that the updated wiped out any accumulated learnings.

It's almost like the Sport button has no effect on throttle response (which is the only drivetrain benefit in the Manual tranny with the sport button).

Anyone else notice any change in performance like this following a software update?