I'm surprised you haven't noticed the lack of a temperature gauge.

 

Does it adjust itself if you have rain-sensing wipers?

 

Oh yeah - one more thing - Brake dust and German philosophy that rotors are disposable just like brake pads. BMW makes nice looking cars that all have dirty wheels. Some of this is not their fault since the removal of asbestos from brake pads killed the "hard" pads, so now they have to use a soft material on the sport models. But why can't they make beefy rotors to last through several pad changes? On my VW Touareg, this is a thousand dollar change (or $700 if you do it yourself). I asked the dealer when I bought the MINI, and the service manager confirmed this to be true on them as well. Hopefully the rotors and pads won't be that expensive.

 

I was just commenting to my wife on this very same topic last night as we endured a torrential downpour on our way home from shopping last night: Those rain sensing wipers are just awesome!!!! When we first started out on our trip it was spritzing just a bit so I activated the rain sensing mode. In any other car I've owned I would've had to put on the intermittent jobbers where I'd have to continually adjust their speed based on how much water was flying off the cars and trucks in front of me. When the drizzle switched over to steady rain, my MINI's rain sensers sped up to regular speed then hypersonic speed when a big stupid semi went blasting by me drenching me with his spray. Honestly, of all the little toys my MINI has I swera these wipers and the heated seats have to be my favorites and most used.

And yes, the stereo sound sucks. I love the Ipod integration thing - that's very cool and fun. I also like the fact that this little car with its tiny antenna can pick up my favorite AM sports talk station from over 100 miles away while my FJ Cruiser gets mostly static. But maybe it's the fact that I get most of my Ipod tunes off the internet, but the sound is very disappointing. I continually find myself trying to re-adjust the bass and treble for each successive song. Stuff that sounds fantastic when connected to my earphones sounds tinny played over the MINI's sound system. It won't stop me from buying my next MINI in a few years, but it is indeed a drawback.

 

Hop on over to these threads : Replace the speakers, swap the wires, add a sub. You won't be disappointed any longer.

 

1) Other drivers contempt for my cute little car.

2) After a snow/ice storm I've noticed that loose loose ice will get in behind the boot hatch and rattle around if not removed.

3) Jerky downshifting... getting better at it though.


The car is a blast though! It has so much personality.

 

Try rev-matching or double clutching. See www.standardshift.com for more help.

 

Three things bug me about my '09 Clubman S, so far............

Those tiny little sunvisors.

Only one speed on the intermittant wipers. I mean come on, even $9K Hyundais have 4 or 5......I have the rain sensing wipers on my '03 and there are times when they don't work so well either.

Speedometers that are inaccurate. Every other newer car I own has an accurate speedo, none of the MINIs I have owned or been loaned have - one was off by 7 mph! This one's "only" off by 3 mph............my '03 is "only" off by 2 mph, but why can't it be made right?

 

How do you no your speedo it off

 

there is more than one speed. you just don't get to tell it when to change speeds. it wipes faster as you drive faster.

 

"I'm sorry, officer... I was just trying to get this juicy bug off my windscreen."

 

Checked it with my Garmin GPS.

Checked all of my cars.......

'04 Audi allroad............spot on.
'98 Lexus ES 300..............spot on.
'08 Tundra...............spot on.
'03 MCS ........+2
'09 MCS Clubman ....+3
'69 Jaguar XK-E............well, it's an old Jag, whadya expect?

Various loaners from Baron MINI .........+3 to +7!

I've also compared my GPS to my wife's - they agree.........

 

I don't think that is so bad from my perspective. It may keep me from getting a ticket. But then again that should be my choice right?

 

It must have an idiot light right? I would hope that it is sensitive and appears before your engine is toast.

Pat

 

GPS is not a terribly accurate way to measure speed. You can probably figure on within 5 meters of error. With a 1Hz sampling rate and a speed of 45 mph, that's as much as 8 mph of error right there. Now, what matters is sample-to-sample error, not absolute error, so that will buy you something... but I think the 2-3 mph of error you were seeing could be accounted for by GPS error alone.

That said, another source of error may very well have been on the car's end. Federal regulation mandates that speedometers be accurate to within 5% (for 45 mph again, that's as much as 2.25 mph of error right there). But modifications can be significant as well -- put 17" wheels on a car expecting 16" wheels, you've added maybe another 4% of error right there (depending on tire thickness).

The point? Neither GPS nor the speedo are terribly accurate systems. Honestly, that you hit the mark right on with 3 of your cars is probably a good case of luck, or perhaps unintentional bias (it's not a blind study, of course).

Something rather interesting: GPS measurement error will decrease as speed increases, but speedometer measurement error will increase.

 

I agree that GPS systems can be inaccurate - it is only as good a the number of satellite signals you are tracking. But with WAAS enabled (using stationary terrestrial signals as well as satellites) and an accuracy reading of under 20 ft (meaning that you probably have at least 5+ satellite signals locked in - excellent triangulation) the GPS is extremely accurate at measuring position, direction and speed due to the Doppler effect (or more accurately - the Doppler shift). The doppler shift error is reduced significantly by the WAAS.

I have a fellow Geocaching buddy who is a cop, and he measured me by radar while I watched the GPS (I suspected my speedo to be a little slow on my Touareg). We were on an open highway, I had WAAS enabled and had an excellent signal (7 locked satellites with 13ft accuracy). The GPS was dead on for the 10+ miles that he measured (between 45 - 70 mph). He also measured me from a stationary position, and the GPS reading and the radar were a dead lock. Turns out my speedo was 6 mph slow, which explained why people were alway passing me even though I was running 5 mph over the speed limit. VW dealership confirmed this (blamed it on my new Michelin tires) and did a calibration.

 

GPS speed is measured independent of GPS position, it uses the Doppler shift of the signal. The accuracy of the speed measurement depends on the quality of the signal, but can easily be 0.1m/s (0.2mph).

I don't know where everyone finds these super accurate speedos, I've only ever had one car with a 2mph offset, every other car has been around 7-10% accurate. The MINI is 5% and 2mph off, with tires 1.5% smaller than stock. That's not bad by my standards.

 

Wow, that's actually pretty clever. I see within 0.5m/s (1.1mph) due to normal signal quality issues now that I know to look for 'doppler', but that's still pretty good.

I was pulled over once and the cop said he clocked me doing 84, but I had the cruise control set to 70... I don't think my speedo was off by quite that much.

 

GPS is very accurate at a steady speed and most automobile speedometers that I have checked (many) are quite accurate.

(Before GPS, I would time-check by mile markers.)

My MINI's speedometer, tach display and CC Readout, all read consistantly 6% fast, but the reading from my ScanGauge (connected to my MINI's OBD Port) shows accurate speed.

 

Well, federal regulation says within 5%, but I read somewhere that most manufacturers intentionally throw in an offset such that the speedometer will not read slower than the car is actually traveling. Something about not wanting to be blamed for tickets, I think.

Not sure how the regulation works with an added offset... doesn't make sense to me (unless a speedometer can be guaranteed within 2.5%, rather than 5%), but that's what I've heard.

 

I think the U.S. Federal spec is +/- 5%, but due to international trade agreements, they'll also accept the EU spec, which doesn't allow the speedometer to read too low by any margin, but allows it to read too high by up to 10% plus an additional 4 km/hr (2.5 mph).

 

Well, I didn't mean to set off a speedo discussion here, but I think that my experience is accurate, given that I got the exact same results with my wife's GPS too.

I've checked mine in a number of circumstances including steady state cruising on a flat road here in flat Kansas, where there's absolutely nothing to get in the way of a good lock on as many as 9 satellites at a time.........

My results are consistant across the board, FWIW.........

 

- Mileage trip computer is +2MPG optimistic every time I check actual mileage. Today I calculated 34.1MPG and the trip computer showed 36.1 MPG. BTW, quite good IMHO for an S!

- I have a 6 sp stick. When I shut off the car, I must wait for several seconds (while holding in the clutch in) after pressing the start/stop button. Several times the car bucked if I left off the clutch too soon after press the start/stop button. Maybe this is just me, but it seems that there is a delay that I must account for. Then I have to press the start/stop button again to turn off the radio! Wow, just too mentally exausting after a long day!

 

MINIDave,

I believe you 100%. I just read an article on how accurate the doppler effect is for measuring speed. The error is directly tied to the signal strength and triangulation.

 

Shut it off in neutral...problem solved. Also, you don't need to push the button a second time to shut off the radio, it will shut off when the door opens...


For me:

-No one touch open/close on the sunroof
-No temperature gauge.