I sat in a CM with the bench at my dealer....I do not like. Its too late to change it back to the two buckets now so if anyone wants to swap their buckets and center rail for my bench lets talk. Carbon Lounge Leather, cream piping.

 

I'm not planning to sit in mine, so not concerned, but you bring up a good point. What happens if you don't like your ordered MINI when it arrives? Can you re-order and let the dealer sell your ordered car? In my case, only a small deposit. Not that I have any intention of giving my baby up for adoption, but just curious.

 

Technically it depends on the agreement you signed, but the bottom line is that it's whatever you negotiate with your dealer. When I was buying my R52, I was told that I could cancel my purchase at any time and apply the deposit towards another car, or if I cancel outright I would be refunded the deposit when the car is sold. In this forum, I haven't heard of anybody who actually lost their deposit. When dealers have no problem selling the cars, they will be relatively flexible about accommodating you.

 

Yeah I have been pulling my hair out over this for 4 weeks. We liked the 4 seater it adds to the unique appeal of the car, but when thinking of resale it may be better to have the bench. Although the unique 4 seater might be the selling point as well. We were told that we could order another and wait for it with no problems. We have been waiting over 2 months now so we are not interested in waiting to reorder. We do have a base loaner so thats cool, which by the way is a four seater but I had 5 people in it the other day. Not so comfy for the poor chap sitting on the rail. But the five seater will definately seat five adults for short jaunts if need be.
I won't be sitting back there either and in reality we have two baby seats that will be in there for years to come. I do wish that the part that folds down in the middle had cup holders molded into it to function as a armrest as well.

There should not be a problem in swapping out the seats in the future but I am sure it would cost a small fortune to order it from the dealer. Best bet would to find CM owner with the same interior to do a swap. I am a mechanic by trade and I had a look at the mounting points, and I don't think it should take more than a couple hours to pull out the bench and install the two seats. But I never compared the two in detail.

 

So, any fellow "benchers" out there have a production date yet??

Have had my production number for 2 1/2 weeks but whenever I call ASK MINI
I still get the "on order with no firm production yet" message......

 

With about 3 weeks until November production begins, I am not surprised by this. Remember, the ordering specs for dealers said the bench would be available beginning in the month of November. That may mean anything from the first day of November to the last day of November. No telling.

I am in the same status as you are. I'll wait until 11/15 before I place a call to my MA. Remember the little blue message in the Owners' Lounge? It said your MINI dealer may have more up to date info than the OL. And, IIRC, when I was waiting for my '04 MCS, my MA DID have more updated info than either the OL or ASKMINI!

Patience...

 

My MA indicated that November 12 was the scheduled start of the production run... but we'll see how true that is! I can't wait to get a production date--at least then I'll have a reasonable guesstimate as to when my baby will be here!

 

I am a little confused by this production bit. My dealer already has them on the lot.

Maybe different for Canadian dealers?

 

Are you saying up north you already have CMs with the bench seat on the lot? did you sit in one and did you like it?

 

Yes.

We were given the option of either and we chose the 4 seater. But it seems that we were too late and ours is coming with the bench, so our dealer had us come in and see if we liked the 5 seater version or not or we could order another car. We sat in it and I am not a fan but also don't want to wait another 8 weeks. The fold up floor doesn't fully open like the 4 seat version and the seat does not recline that I could find but it does move back and forth.

So yes there are 5 seater CM currently on the lot, I sat in one. Like I mentioned in a different post, they really should have molded cup holders into the middle part that folds down.

 

Oh forgot...that was about 4 weeks ago.

 

The bench has been available in non-USA markets for some time -- since the start of CM production I believe. The hold up in the US was a DOT seat width specification not met by the current bench. The DOT relaxed their spec in spring, and MINI then set up plans for incorporating the bench into the US-bound MINIs.

Since Canada is not ruled by the DOT, they have had bench seat availability.

 

Right you are.

Now I remember reading that before.

 

It's a good thing I know y'all are talkin about CM bench seats.

 

Heheheh

 

just a shout out to everyone that ordered the bench seat. Please post it up here once your order goes into production to give us all an idea when they actually start making our bench seat equipped cars. Cheers...

 

Will do for sure!

 

Will do also...although if I'm not one of the first I'm going to get jealous

 

well, just got back from the motor tober event from my Mini dealer.... did the whole registration thing, test drove a really nice cosmic blue CMSa and talked to a couple taking delivery of their all light white CMSa with polar beige leather interior. That thing was gorgeous. Anyway, my MA checked the system on the status of my order and it came back with a scheduled production week of week 44... Hey, that's in a couple of weeks already.... that was a nice surprise... anyway, it may be worth it for you to check with your MA as to when your production week (or date) will be at this time... anyway, enjoy some pics of some CMS that were there...
here's the cosmic blue CMSa that I test drove... very, very nice... I would've loved this with a black top

Here's that all light white CMSa with the polar beige leather seats.... so nice....

Surf blue... I originally thought about getting this color... but I'm more partial to white as you can see from my sig

bright silver... very nice one too. another color that I was considering....

 

Just got back from my MINI dealer's Motor-tober event, too, and talked with the manager about production dates & expected arrival. My CM with the bench was still showing "on order", but he expected them to start production in next week or so. He thought it was quite possible it'd be here by the end of the year, as MINI tends to get them off their hands by then, so they are the dealer's responsibility. So, production slow downs and hurricane/blizzards aside, I may actually get to use my voucher! For those counting, he told me it was typically 45-60 days en route to the Midwest once they started production of your CM. Obviously, travel to your destination would vary.

Meanwhile, I got to look at all the new 2012 CM's (every color except, silver, the one I ordered), and listen to the standard sound system (much better than 2011 models). I even got a t-shirt during my visit. Go MINI!!!

 

That's great to hear! I might have to shoot my MA an email, as the Owner's Lounge still shows "on order" for me. Glad to hear you've got a date, and now you've got a good idea of when your new baby will be here!

 

Thanks. It was great to test drive a non all4 CMSa this time. Laid on it a bit to see if the added weight made a lot of difference and surprisingly, it felt as sprite as my MCSa. The added room will really help since it will be a DD for us. I really can't wait now...

 

Just to add, my MA gave me a demo of the load flat floor and it does seem redundant for us bench seaters. The mini connected was really cool and worked really well with the park distance control. Alas, standard dash for me with iPod/Bluetooth option. All good though. Cheers!

 

Good news for me. According my my MA, the bench seat allocations are fairly thin on the West Coast and my order was in a holding pattern. They said they managed to get me into an earlier allocation that I had "just missed" when I placed my order on October 1. They basically changed the build for a bench seat car that was going to end up as dealer stock. It probably could have been done from day one, but they told me up front that orders for their first bench seat allocation were already placed and I would be in the next batch. The January 3rd deadline to apply the Motor-Tober rebate probably had a lot to do with my cutting in line, but regardless, they said the cars should go into production any day now and I am a very happy camper at this point!

I went on the Owner's Lounge with the production number and magically the next day the Brilliant Black CM4 with Steptronic changed to my Royal Gray CM4 with 6 speed manual. Did I already say I was a happy camper?

 

Got a note from my MA today telling me that our CMS is scheduled for production and due to be complete on Nov 7th! Looks like the bench seat production will, in fact, commence with production week 44. If this pans-out, we have an outside chance of taking delivery by the Jan 3rd Motor-tober-vember date!

Other folks with early bench seat allocation slots may want to contact their MA to find out about their production week and completion date.