I came to this site before I bought my Clubman and I offer this as hopefully helpful advice to future owners. We bought a 2013 model in the latter half of '12 so it's getting close to 2 years.

We are a family of 4 living in a big city (ATL). The kids are basically middle school age/size. The car is the wife's daily driver but we've taken it on long trips (400+ miles) several times.

For in town driving this car is awesome. So easy to park. And I've been pleasantly surprised as to what I can get in the car from home improvement stores. It's under warranty still but we've had no issues with the car.

Long drives are another matter. We did get the base model but still, the seats are terrible on drives more than 2 hours. Getting out for breaks doesn't seem to help either. I love the car and tried to mentally block this aspect for a while. We're not overweight or out of shape either. I'm not expecting the seat to be like a La-Z-Boy.

The road noise on highway trips is pretty bad too. Once we switch out the tires that may improve the sound a little. We find that we can't listen to audiobooks because you miss too much.

Overall we love the car. 90+% of all our driving is in the city. I just hate that it's not a better long distance car. After all, much of the marketing is around road trips. And speaking of road trips and families, I can get a weeks worth of beach supplies in there for the 4 of us and then get great mileage to the destination. (Below are the pics to prove it) I just loathe the seats and noise getting there.
All the stuff for a week:

Packed in:

But nothing in the foot wells:

 

Nice review!

Don't know if you have the run flats or not but their noise is horrible on the highway and the right new tires will certainly help. I don't recall what the conventional stock tires on my 2010 were like so if you don't have the run flats I can't comment with confidence.

If you haven't already, try retrofitting the lumbar supports to your seats. Makes a big difference in my opinion. The seats still won't be Lincoln Town Car seats, but you might find it helps, and it's a pretty inexpensive upgrade.

Agree on the amount of stuff you can carry from the home improvement store... I used to haul all kinds of stuff in my Clubman... Best was the looks I'd get when I'd pull my cart of dimensional lumber up to the car (a roof rack helps with this).

 

Thanks! Good point that I should have mentioned; I have conventional tires, not run-flats. It's one of the reasons I went with the base model. The dealership here in ATL usually adds heated seats (according to them) so I figured "nice comfort option for a base model price".

Once these tires need replacing I'll upgrade to something more quiet. And, I'm researching sound dampening in the meantime as well.

 

FWIW. I just went through the process of having dynamat installed in the driver and passenger doors of my '13 clubman. After finishing the job, the installer said that he would be charging $500 per door for future mini clients due to how difficult the job was.

 

Lantz , please share your assessment of effectiveness of dynamat as a sound deadener. Have you considered or been advised to insulate under carpet or other parts of car?

 

Search for dynamat. If you put it in each tire well and on the floor/under the seats it will make a noticeable difference. I didn't do the doors specifically due to the difficulty involved.

 

I was advised to do the doors since we had them apart of the Integral Audio installation. It's hard for me to provide much of an assessment due to only having the car for a week prior to the installation. I hardly recall what the sound was like before then. I want to say that the cabin seems more sound proof, but I can't honestly say that the difference was compelling enough to do it. I suspect that I would need to do the floors and wheel wells to gain any audible improvement.

 

Looking at your pics, I have the same seats in my '12 MCS hatch. Drove it across country last summer, and yep, those seats are a bear. I go numb about 2-3 hours in. Have tried a couple of different seat cushions, not much help. If you find one that helps, pls post..