woot we're 34th!!

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-relea...118165444.html


Here's a quote from an Automotive News article:

 

 

interior controls and difficult to control seats? A monkey could do both, just have to remember where the levers are!

 

The biggest problem areas were interior controls and seats which owners find "difficult to operate," rather than mechanical quality

Hell, I'll take that over mechanical any day.

 

+1!!

 

What does a lack of basic motor functions on the part of the drivers have to do with the car's dependability?

 

I love that comment! Meanwhile Consumer reports recommends the Justacooper and it actually has a lower cost per mile of ownership over almost everything else.

 

They're right, its SOOOO hard to press the switches down to roll down the windows. It should just know i want them to go down.

Maybe we could have the turn signals, Traction control, wipers, and radio controls all on the front of the steering wheel like the Ferrari 458. Those are sure to make it easier to use.

 

Well, I guess I'm in the minority here.

It did take me a short while to get use to the window and lock buttons being in the center, down under the HVAC controls, even though the window buttons were on the center console on my old Firebirds decades ago.

And as to the seats, I think most people are use to having a joystick power control, and not a bunch of manual levers.

Not that any of this is by itself wrong. It just is different and because of that, takes a bit of getting use to.

IMHO, JD factors in intuitive controls as what it considers good human factors engineering (ergonomics).

 

Interesting on the justacooper.....

73k and no breakdowns although the stealership wanted to sell me
an $850 airbag when it was only a wire jiggle....

 

What? just because some one does not know how to work a control does not mean it is broken!

 

I don't think *creature comforts* should ever allow a car to be ranked that low... 40,000 on my MC - I drive it hard more than I drive it soft - it's been up and down Mt. Washington once and is about to go up again - and I've had no issues other than a window... It's one tough little car.

 

ZERO problems with my '09 Cooper @ 44k miles.

What a completely useless study. In fact, worse than useless.

 

I really wouldnt care if they were first or last. I just love driving the damn thing.

 

Eh, JD results have been skewed for years. I stopped listening to them around the time I got my second car.

 

Same happen to me whenever I drove my in-law's Jeep Liberty where the windows and lock control where located in the center armrest, pretty darn difficult to remember and operate, however I love my Mini's controls location, look and feel much better!

Also, those who like me spent hours upon hours sited on an office chair know how to operate Mini's seats by default, almost same lever location and functions! LOL


Cheers!
Rayan

 

What I think makes a survey like this suspect is that it is so heavily biased towards luxury cars at the top and small/economical cars at the bottom. This indicates to me that they're surveying owners more than they're surveying cars. And when I see generally reliable makes like Mazda and Nissan at the bottom, BS bells go off.

These JD Power surveys have been more or less the automotive equivalent of the "Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval" anyway - if you do well, then you pay them money to put their logo in your ads. JD Power is a marketing firm and when money is involved all bets are off.

Having said all this, Mini's are no paradigms of reliability.

- Mark

 

These are probably americanized monkeys we're talking about ... some of 'em just can't get accustomed to MINI's quirkiness, ergo, it must be bad.

Yes, MINI does a few things a little, shall we say, uniquely, but they just take some getting used to. Once you've driven the car for, like, a week, you should be able to start to figure out where everything is and how it works if you have half a brain. If you can't, well, you shouldn't be driving one. Go back to your Buick land yacht.