I wanted to have people share what cool features they have found on their new 2014 Hardtop. Little tricks or idea's you've found during your tinkering and driving.

I like the "Hill Assist." We live in the Northern CA Sierra mountains. Our driveway has a 17% grade, long and steep. We have a clutch, and when you go from a stop, to going...IT DOESN'T ROLL BACKWARDS!!!! That is so cool.

 

We are getting so many threads now it's hard to keep track. I knew your post sounded familiar and way back on page 11 there is this: Things you did't know your f56 could do. https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-could-do.html

Perhaps it's time to resurrect it as more people get more hands-on time. I couldn't believe it was so buried, seems like just yesterday it was hot.

 

The Goldfish!

When in Green Mode, if you head to Car Information and then MINImizer, and turn on MINImizer Analyst, it has a rather depressed looking goldfish in a bowl on top of a MINI with two categories, Acceleration and Anticipation. You'll earn stars in those categories for good driving, and as you earn more stars, the fish become happier! It'll tell you when you're accelerating to fast and braking too quickly (or not coasting for a while before braking). Also has the same +mileage counter that you see on the instrument panel when switching to green mode, which is helpful as then you can switch to a different mode there.

It makes driving in green mode more fun, and anything that makes driving slow fun welcomed. Makes it less frustrating when stuck behind someone slow after a stop light, because at least you're upping your acceleration score!

 

Here's a good one...https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ing-cycle.html

 

SeppTB are you trolling? That almost doesn't sound real. It's like a car Tomagachi, remember those in the 90's? Will the fish live you have bad driving. I'm cracking up, thanks for sharing that.

becky1711 thanks for sharing that thread. I thought I saw something similar, but couldn't find anything. Well...we can cross share, I'm going to that link now!

 

Yeah, the moderator (or whoever organizes this) needs to do some serious housecleaning or we'll all be posting duplicate and triplicate threads because it's getting too hard to find stuff. There's even a thread or two on that too buried back there somewhere.

 

Yup I remember those! It is a bit like that. You won't kill the poor Goldfish, but I'll let you see this one for yourself: Under the settings there's a 'Green mode speed warning', set that, then head out on the highway and go beyond it. Poor goldfish.

And totally real (this is medium happy, he gets super happy if you get a total of 8 stars):

 

i have a little OCD so i always make sure the power/ volume **** is correctly oriented and then only use my steering wheel controls to adjust the volume in my VW. I guess I'll have to do that in the new car too!

 

Greg, I started doing exactly that too, because of this picture. Sorry if I just unsettled your world a bit

 

You must be driving an automatic. I was curious about how and why stars would be awarded for Shifting in an automatic. Now if I could just get that star stealing fish to realize that it makes no sense to shift to fourth for ten feet before I roll up to an intersection.

 

Interesting! Is there a third category for shifting on manuals or is that in with Anticipation? I can tell you that the automatic loves to shift into 4th to coast for 10 feet all the time! The fish demands you shift!

 

More cool things:

- You can set your radio presets to any function, not just radio stations. I have 6 set to toggle split screen on/off. (https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...tcuts-yet.html)

- The Connected XL system has 20GB of internal storage, you can transfer things over to it from USB, and then search the hard drive by album, artist, song, etc. Voice commands work decently here too, though 'Play <Artist Name>' seemed to return mixed results for me, once it gave me 20 random songs, another time it gave me 130 sorted alphabetically.

- The Navigation XL system will warn you of road construction and closures on your route.

- Your car will play movie files! From a USB stick/phone. Doesn't seem to load them onto the hard drive. The car needs to be in park/not in gear for them to play.

- If you have powered rotating mirrors (from cold weather package), if your mirror adjust selector is set towards the driver's side, the passenger side mirror will rotate to point at the ground/rear wheel when the car is in reverse. Switch it to the other position to turn that off.

- If you have the Backup Camera / PDC, the options for turning the backup lines & turn indicators are in the actual backup camera screen! So you'll need to shift in reverse (or reverse then up to park, leaves the camera on) and then turn them on, took me a while to find that one! I highly recommend them, they adjust as you turn the wheel and show where your car will be going.

 

This was on the 2007 R56 models. It releases when it feels the car start going forward or after 10-15 seconds.

 

Yes


Acceleration
Anticipation
Shifting

 

I have the XL system and if you touch your finger on a preset button it will display the preset on the top of the screen before you press the button.

I have 5 and 6 set up to one touch dial my wife and father and forgot which is which. So if you just lay your finger on the button it displays what you are about to press!

 

Hilarious. My sales person knew about this one and showed me at pick up time at the dealer. I love that almost any function in the head unit can be set to these buttons.

 

When I went for a test drive, the mirrors did that, I was hoping it was a standard option.

 

At first I thought it was just because I had it set wrong but.. that doesn't seem to be the case. I didn't think you needed the cold weather package to do it, but I must be wrong.

On a different note, I also am highly entertained by the goldfish. I feel like it's so silly but at the same time it makes me happy when I catch it jumping out of the bowl to get that stupid star.

 

You have to have the powerfold mirrors for the passenger mirror to look down in reverse.

 

We were trying to get the goldfish, but alas, we don't have the bigger screen, so we don't have it. Sigh. We're not part of the same fish bowl.

MPG-Onboard Vehicle Info-Vehicle consumption, can reset MPG every time you get gas so you can see what each tank does, instead of accumulation.

Headphone 3.5 mm mini jack-male male connection into a Kindle, lets you hear books while driving.

Cruise control. Click lightly to increase speed, goes up one mph. Click firmly, goes up 5mph.

Speed-If you press on the gas pedal, this car goes a lot faster than it seems it's going. Look at speedometer, if you notice there are no cars around you. Before mentioned cruise control is your friend.

 

Our car: Volcanic Orange 2014 Mini Hardtop, manual

Commute: 130 miles a day. Starts at the altitude of 3000', drives down to 52', then back up--all in green mode, all highway--except the first and last five miles, when it goes into sport on our windy mountain roads.

MPG: Round trip is 46MPG. One day, when he didn't use the air conditioning, it was even a bit higher.

Time: We've been driving it two weeks, and have put a little over 1400 miles on it.

Going downhill, there are times it's getting more than 99.9 MPG (that's the highest the gauge goes!). Then the drive uphill, it's getting 30 or so. It's been hot, so the air conditioning is going too.

The on board meter gauge and our own paperwork has shown the same total MPG at fill up. Mind you, it stays in green mode, for most of that drive.

So...if you're going a long straight long distance, and there's no need for sport and you want to conserve fuel, it's the way to go. It's also made the drive SO much more enjoyable...not just because of what the MPG is, but how it feels and looks. Style AND substance!

 

I had NO idea about these. Thanks!!!

 

I was reading the online manual and it says that you can set it to read and display the last speed limit sign. Is this real ? Is it a standard item or option ?

 

You have to have the driving assistant add-on for the speed limit detection. It adds the front facing camera that lets it work.

 

I think you have to have a special package for that (I think currently the US cars don't have that option -- I could be mistaken). It uses a camera behind the rear view mirror to do this among other functions if this option is installed.