I think i am done driving for the day (first day of MINI at home) and at the risk of sounding like a cliche, this is by far the best driving experience i've had.

Here are a few observations:

1. The handling is superb (no Sport button yet...)
2. The ride is a bit rough (and shitty Seattle roads don't help) but that doesn't bother me
3. The auto rain sensing stuff works great but not perfectly - i wish it was more proactive but no biggie here - i can manually tap it once
4. The car is great for tall (and heavy) old me but i have to crouch to see the traffic signal
5. The sun-visor is useless for me when the sun is hitting from the side
6. Acceleration in automatic mode is a bit too slow for me - i am going to try out the manual shifting tomorrow and see what's up.


I went out for a drive today after coming from Portland and a dumb lady driving a pretty expensive looking car almost crashed into me. I honked and avoided her (agile car!). It was around a curve and the dumb driver didn't know how to drive and slowly edged into my lane till her right tires were almost in. I wish i memorized her car plate number

 

Glad you are enjoying it. Regarding item 4, try this... http://www.lightinsight.com/our_product.htm
It will solve the problem. The lady in your lane won't be the last - I meet those around here a lot.

A long time ago, I spent a summer working in Olympic NP. You have some awesome twisties to play on up there.

 

Haven't experienced it myself, but I've read that the automatic feels a lot crisper in sport mode . . .

 

I second the recommendation of a lightinsight.

Should be the first mod any tall motorer makes.

 

Very much so! You will really notice how it downshifts faster when slowing down. I notice that with the auto if I'm making a normal turn to another street the acceleration is sluggish (when not in Sport) so I sometimes hit the paddle shifter to drop me down a gear. That usually puts me into 3rd according to the tach. Which means the auto is trying to go in and out of a turn in 4th? No wonder it feels sluggish. With the Sport button hit the acceleration in and out of turns is really nice without even using the shifters.

 

I found that my the shifting on my auto got better over time. It seemed to be trying to figure out my driving style during the break-in period and the shifting was all over the place. Now, it workd great.

 

I noticed this as well. In non-sport mode it tends to hold VERY high gears pretty much all the time. So you have to really floor the pedal to get any type of acceleration at all, and even then it's not very much of it. Also I recognized that only in sport mode does the transmission start you off in first gear from a stop. Otherwise it starts out in 2nd gear which is why there's that initial 'dead' 1-2 inches of pedal travel. Finally, sport mode allows a lot more engine braking which I personally like as I barely have to use the brakes at all. Not to mention all shifts take place a lot faster.

The only downside to all of this is that I do recognize a 4-5 decrease in mileage. Hence I generally use sport mode only for passing, merging, and spirited driving in general.

Now that I'm past break-in and have gotten a proper feel for the MINI I simply know that many times I have to really get on the pedal to maintain an appropriate speed. It definitely does learn your style of driving as now I can actually anticipate exactly when it's going to upshift, downshift or hold a gear.

 

Getting to the other points brought up by the OP.

2. What wheels/tires do you have? My first MINI had the 17" crown spokes while my new one has the 16" s-winders. While the crown spokes looked better, the ride with the s-winders is a great improvement. I actually plan to switch them out for some non-RF 17's after winter so the ride should be even better and I'll have that sporty larger wheel appearance back.
Depending on the tires it'll also improve your handling even more so.

3. Have you tried adjusting the sensitivity of the wipers using the OBC? You can adjust them through 4 settings. From the factory it's set to bar 3 of 4 (4 being the most sensitive) so perhaps by adjusting it to maximum (bar 4) you won't have to override it at all. I actually have mine set on bar 2 of 4 and for me it's perfect.

5. I recognized this same thing. However if you combine the side sun-visor and the front sun-visor in its side setting, you can completely block out the top of almost the entire driver's door window.

 

Seriously, get the Light in Sight product. It's about $15 shipped and is very effective for tall people (I'm 6'5").

bonmot

 

- I have the 16" runflats

- No i haven't tried changing any setting at all - i probably will tweak a few probably next week - too busy driving

- I just saw the side visor this morning - silly me - almost missed

 

You guys pretty much nailed it - i found out what you said when i started off from a redlight and went to manual DS mode and i found the gear was 5 and i was like - I know why my MA told me to stay away from the sport button before break-in: so easy to go past the 4500 rpm in automatic mode

 

Ordered . I like the fact that's it's removable.

 

Especially if you punch it from a standstill. But it really gets you out into traffic!
I stayed away from the button during break-in. Now it's just really fun.

 

S-winders (standard) or bridge-spokes (optional)?

Yea, it's honestly ridiculous how high standard automatic keeps the gears. But I guess that's what you need for top fuel economy... I definitely wouldn't mess with the sport button during break-in. Even without really getting into the throttle, it holds gears so long that I'm almost always in the 3-5K range.

 

I have the bridge-spokes