My beloved R53 is going to be at the dealer for a little bit, so I have a justa F56 for a week. Here I'll be posting my biased opinion for anyone curious to hear. I'll post some pictures inside and out maybe even some GoPro videos, and of course my final review.

 

Here's the review vehicle: 2015 justa Cooper automatic

 

Those grey door panels are... interesting.

 

I don't mind the color, as it lightens up the interior a bit. But unless you pay for a color line upgrade, the door panels on the Cooper look incomplete IMO.

Thanks to bavmotors for the upcoming review

 

I have the gray door panels on mine. But it has a gray color line and black swoopy thing on the door that I think ties it together better.

 

Yeah, it needs the trim, otherwise it looks incomplete.

 

I see you shut down the automatic start/stop. Drive you crazy?

 

Horrible pictures. What is this 1997? 😄

 

Maybe he took the photos with a camera phone instead of a bizillion dollar camera. So what.

 

More than good enough for me!! Big pictures are only useful if you cannot go see the real thing.....good enough for a reasonable sized screen imo!
Keep up the good work!!
Yeah...interesting choice of door panels...looks like they forgot something...
Guess cost cutting in the most obvious way...yuck!!

 

Exactly a camera phone from the 90's.
My post was meant to be funny. Hence the emoticon. Oh well...motor on...😄

 

If your going to be funny be funny, I took them with my iPhone 5s. My girlfriend is a photographer but I don't like using her dslr as its her tool to earn a living.

 

How do you like the F56 so far, bavmotors? Never drove an R53 but I did a little comparison with my R58. I didn't drive the F56 very long this weekend.

 

Well I've been driving the F56 a lot and it's been surprisingly enjoyable. Actually if I never had to leave the car I wouldn't have too many complaints. It drives nice and tight with a milder Go-kart feeling compared to the r53. The interior quality has definitely been stepped up. I didn't notice any rattles except for the sunroof shade on hard bumps. The Interior feels very roomy with the slimmed door panels and of course the larger size of the car.

The large center speedo is gone and replaced with the entertainment screen. The speedo had been moved next to the tachometer over the steering wheel. The gauge setup is nice however I dislike the gas gauge. It looks more like a shift light. I for the life of me couldn't figure out where the engine temperature readout is. The ringed light has a couple different settings based on how you want it to behave. I found the light ring to be too bright while driving at night, even on the lowest brightness. The same goes for the rest of the interior lights.

The review vehicle had the HK audio however I believe the HK audio settings that I enjoy in my R53 seem to be missing. The Harman Kardon doesn't compare to the R53 HK as far as sound quality. The seats are nice quality and comfortable, the seat recline levers are a bit clumsy to use. The car drives great and has surprising pep for a 3 cylinder turbo. I had the automatic version and found the manual shift mode pretty responsive, when I shifted up or down it would react quickly. The start stop function however I found to be awful, the car sounds like it's constantly stalling out. If you take it out of green mode this function is disabled thankfully. Honestly the start stop function made me feel very unsafe. I found the car accelerates really nice but the braking isn't the greatest. I observed 28mpg, I drove in sport mode always and spirited most of the time. The handling is good at most speeds that laws permit.

All in all, driving the car is fun and the interior makes it a nice place to be in.
It's when I get out of the car where it losses me, the car has a bloated look to it, not necessarily because of the increased size, but the new features. The headlights are bigger the taillights are massive, the side mirrors are huge. The windows all seem to be much shorter in height, visibility out of the rear window is poor. All of these make the car look overweight. I can't tell if the car looks happy or sad, it sort of looks like a child with a finger on each end of their mouth pulling. I do feel the color of my loaner didn't help much, the hood really needs stripes to break up the open space. With that said I find the "S" version to look much better.

In summary the F56 is a great car, but not a great MINI. The driving feeling remains but much of the craziness of what I love about MINI is missing.

Final scores out of 10
Exterior styling-6
Interior styling and quality-8
Driving performance-7
Fun to drive-8

 

Well I returned the f56 and as a final word I would consider an f56 S as a nice daily driver sometime down the road.

 

Thanks for the positive writeup! For the new breed of Mini owners, we are content with the slightly less appealing looks as we gain so much more of a solid feeling, refined, "techno wizardry filled" joy of a car! Loving mine

 

Thanks for the mini review. I hope your R53 is doing well after the service visit.

 

thanks, it is they finally tracked down a bad wire causing a check engine light.

 

That's a pretty fair review I'd say, especially from an r53 owner. FWIW, you quickly get used to the "bloated" exterior once you're around it for a little while. Or at least I did. I honestly think my F56 is the best looking MINI I've owned outside of our classic and I never would have thought that possible from my first impression of the car.

 

I think the F56 looks more appealing than the R53/56. Looks more serious and solid!

 

I agree. I see older Mini's now and think they look small and plain. Just what you are used to I guess.

 

I have a 2012 R56, JCW, and have tracked it on some serpentine courses and spent some time in the mountains of NC and TN and the go kart performance and feel are what I love about it. I am considering the new F56, JCW when it becomes available. I was going to order one sight unseen until I started reading some of the reviews. I don't want yet another refined sports car. I have had several of them and still do have one. I referred to our favorite little car as a street legal go kart. I will wait until the local dealer has one in stock and see how I like it. I am also a manual transmission fan and you have to pay an upcharge for the manual so I guess that is where BMW is going with it. I do like the additional horsepower, but for me the mini is not about horsepower, but about great handling and fun driving. Thanks for the great review.

 

There is no upcharge for a manual transmission as it is standard. There is, however, a $1,250 charge for the automatic.

 

I misspoke regarding the automatic/manual. I was reading the motoring file feed about the 2015 JCW late one night/early morning and it said the manual transmission would not be available until later in the year. Somehow I interpreted that incorrectly to mean more $$! The statement from the motoring file feed is pasted below.
Production begins in March for cars with the automatic transmission while production for cars with the manual transmission will begin a few months later. This is unexpected and MINI explains this delay by the fact that “Munich wants to make sure they got the manual transmission just right before letting it enter production”. We don’t want to sound pessimistic for lovers of the stick shift, but this might indicate how the BMW Group sees the role of the manual transmission moving forward. Dealerships already have allocations from the March and April production, so order bank cars can be built from May production onward.

 

I agree with you about the automatic and BMW. Even Porsche is favoring their automatic and you can't even buy a manual in a Ferrari.