what did that cost if you don't mind me asking? Can you install with DDC?

 

I have all the parts for a JCW Suspension...less than 2,000 miles on them. Front Struts and Springs, Rear Shocks and Springs. Rear Sway Bar. If anyone wants them, I will let them go for a reasonable price...say $700.00

 

Could someone describe what the JCW Pro Sport option is (or is it called JCW Pro Sport coilover?). When I ordered my 2019 JCW I thought the only options were the DDC or the Sport Suspension.
Is the PRO a dealer option? A MINI aftermarket purchase?
Is it meant as an upgrade for the Cooper S to make it like the JCW?
Is it considered a performance upgrade over the two JCW factory options (DDC or "Sport Suspension")
Thanks

 

but if it handles like crap as reported here, I am glad to know now and this confirm there will not be another Mini in my future. Anyway, I am not a fan of boxy cars and over the last few years, it gets uglier than ever in any body style.

I can figure the average JCW is about $45K. It's a shame to have to invest another $4K-$5K on wheels, tires, suspension upgrades and tuning to make it decent. At this price point for a new car with everything put together, there are far better options on the market for about the same money.

The spirit of the performance flagship Mini seems really to go in the drain.

 

Lets not "throw the baby out with the bathwater". The JCW is still one of the funnest cars to drive. My JCW has some handling characteristics that I am not happy with, but I still take it out every chance I get just to drive. I have never owned a car that I enjoy driving this much. We are all really talking about getting that last 10% -15% out of the car. Every car has trade off's, in this case, BMW/Mini chose comfort over handling. My friend has a Focus RS. That car handles like nothing I have ever driven, but when we took it on a two hour car ride, I was exhausted by feeling every bump in the road. I do not get that with my mini. I have driven 8 hours in my Mini and enjoyed every second of it. The exhaust on the JCW has a low growl that just make me relax and the pops and cracks still bring a grin to my face. Mini is not the car for everyone, but for those who can over look some "attitude" then nothing beats a Mini for the money.

 

dube53, Certainly individual preferences for cars comes and goes. The spirited, around-town, slightly slower speed handling and drive-ability, along with the size of the car is awesome for my tastes. I'm not discounting my disappointment with the 70+ MPH handling issue we are talking about, and I get why MINI is searching for a compromise blend of performance and comfort that would reach them a larger sales volume. They went slightly the wrong direction from the JCW gen2 to gen3 in my opinion, but I'm loving too many other aspects of this car to be having a negative overall view of it. Every time I get in it I'm glad I purchased it. So, like said above, Mini is not the car for everyone.

 

@Warren2185
I don't think there is a Sports Suspension option on the JCW. It comes with those parts by default. I ordered my 2014 S with that option. Consists of stiffer dampers (I think springs are the same), and sway bars both front and rear.

The JCW Pro option is a coil over kit. Made by KW, and similar to the v1. Though I think it has some kind of low-speed bypass to smooth out small bumps, something like their Street Comfort. This is me judging only by people's description of the ride, and the fact that it uses the same springs as the Street Comfort, rather than the slightly thicker rear spring from the v1. The kit is installed at the dealer rather than factory. There is a good thread on the coils here:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...nboxing-1.html

 

I do no believe you can get JCW Pro with the DDC installed, most people tell me new springs with the DDC helps significantly.

 

This is an interesting discussion. I have almost 1000 miles on my 2019 JCW. It is pure stock, right down to the RFTs (Hankook 205/45 -17) and I can’t say that I have had any of these handling or braking issues. I have also read all of the horror reviews of these tires on Tire Rack, which included how bad they are in the wet, but haven’t experienced those issues either.

I find the car to corner flat and the braking secure, no wobble. Cornering is undramatic. No interference from the nannies. I will say that under braking, I have not hit the ABS and, for cornering, I haven’t pealed the rubber off the tires, they haven’t squealed, but I am not slow through the corners either. At speed the car is very stable.

For comparison I have a 2012 S street/track car. Quaife LSD, Bilstien B8 shocks, MINI Sports Suspension option springs, Powerflex front lower control arm bushings, 27mm solid FSB, 25 hollow RSB and various street/track tires. I have been impressed as to how close the JCW comes to this car in handling, at least off the track. I expect the biggest limitation of the JCW will be its lack of decent camber.

In addition to this, I met up with a person with a pure stock F56 JCW, including RFTs, at Lime Rock Park race track for a track event. His appraisal of the car was very positive. He was in the Advanced run group with a lot of experience in another car. This was his first time in the JCW on the track.

I can’t imagine why I am finding such a difference from what others are experiencing. I will note that my tire pressures are higher than I expected; about 40 psi all around, but this about what the tag in the car says the pressure should be. These cars do have torque vectoring braking to help the car to turn. I know some people have reported that this has had undesirable results. But, I have not had any experience with this.

As for the JCW Pro suspension, here is a link to the MINI description of them:
https://www.shopminiusa.com/PRODUCT/...-SPORT-CHASSIS

It includes the following statement:
”It is currently not possible to install the JCW PRO Sport chassis in combination with the Dynamic Damper Control (SA 223).”

 

Eddie - I have only experienced the twitchyness when DSC has been disabled and during very hard braking from very high speeds.
The car was fine on the tail of the dragon.
My car is a 19 JCW with DDC and not the sport suspension.

 

Eddie this is interesting because tow other JCW drivers I know do not have control issues either
You do not have DDC correct?

 

With my 2012 S on the track, where I am approaching threshold braking, I have experienced that tail end dance. This has occurred even with the DTC/DSC fully on. On the track I run with them fully on or with just the DSC off (quick press and release of the switch) as, at the tracks I am on, there are guardrails that will make a mess of any mistakes. From my experience, this is from the rear brakes not taking on enough of the braking duties and I have gotten rid of that issue by going to a more aggressive pad in the rear. How I arrived at this conclusion and fix is a longer story. Suffice to say it worked. I should also note that I have the Wilwood BBK in the front. I wonder if this could be what is occurring with the JCW. I seem to remember reading about this brake twitchiness in some road/track tests of the JCW when the Gen IIIs came out.

My JCW is a “basic” version, with only three options (paint, heated seats and the bonnet stripe), and just has the Sports suspension.

 

So I did have the alignment checked and it was out a little. going for a drive tomorrow so I will see if that makes any changes.

 

madmix - what tire pressures are you running?

 

I run about 38 in front and 32 in rear

 

Try 38 all around. Having it that low in the rear will make the car unstable...

 

I was running 40 all around then when down to 38 all around. Might have to put a little the back now. That was cold so runs about 38 when warm. I am hoping that the aligment helped. It does seem to be a little more sable, but I have not pushed it yet.

 

Just a point of reference. For my track tires, I run them at 38 hot on all four. I find above 39 the tires become greasy. Below 38, the car feels loose. Not sure how that translates to aggressive street driving where the tires can cool a bit, but it does make for a stable platform. It will be interesting to hear how you make out with what you have done.

 

I came to the same conclusion too. The larger front brakes on the JCW is throwing off the balance during braking.

 

I was planning on getting a little more aggressive pads when the OEM wore out. So if I am following correctly, I should get even more aggressive pads for the rear than I do for the front. Any recommendations on which pads?

 

Just some background on my experience. I have experimented with a lot of race pads, but only few street pad and I may not be the best source of info on this one, but this may help a bit. Also, check (search) what pads other people have switched to on these cars.

For the track, the conventional wisdom is to run a full race pad in the front and run a slightly less aggressive pad in the rear. For example, Carbotech makes a great line of race pads and with a nice increase in aggressiveness with each step up in pads. For a MINI Cooper the general consensus was that the Carbotech XP10 should be run up front and the XP8 in the rear. For a variety of reason, I never did run the XP10s in the fronts but I did run the XP8s, along with stock pads and Hawk Blue pads in the rear. This was with a variety of more aggressive pads in the front. On very aggressive braking I had the rear end dance. I finally eliminated the dance by using matched pads front and rear, these being Hawk DTC-60 pads front and rear. My track car runs a smaller rotor than the F56 JCW runs, by quite a bit. So, I expect the balance front to rear is better just on that account alone. Using matched pad worked for me here.

I have not made the same experiment with street pads on the street as I generally never do threshold braking on the street. For the JCW, I would think the stock pad materials are pretty well matched front to rear (same as I found for the track pads), as would any more aggressive pad of the same type. Personally, I would stick with match pads for the street, with something like the EBC Reds or Hawk HPS as a step up and see how either these work. Or step up a bit further with the EBC Yellows or Hawk HP+ But be warned these will tend to squeal like an old school bus and will wear rotors faster. I would wait on doing a more aggressive pad in the rear for the street until I well understood how something like a match pair of the EBC or Hawk pads work. The last thing you want is the rears locking up before the fronts as that will make the car swap ends really fast...

 

Interesting to lurk on this thread. Rather than spending dollars on part mods for one's JCW, I would suggest going to MINI's driving school in Thermal, CA where they run STOCK JCW's on Conti's. I did so 18 months ago and never experienced any of the "problems" described here. On the pad, autocross course, skid pad, or race track(s). Flight, hotel, and tuition appears to be much less than many are spending on mods. The instructors (ex-race car drivers) are great and answer all questions and even throw in a few "special suggestions" for driving the MINI JCW in special circumstances (ice for instance). They attempt to break one's "bad habits", which appears to be the cause of a lot of the "problems" stated on this thread. I am not knocking anyone's skill here, just pointing out that we all have them. They also answered our tech setup questions, tire pressures, etc.

At the end of the day, if your tires are not squealing constantly, you ain't doing it right. For me, it was on the track, 90mph going into/through a hairpin, at the edge of the bump strip, next to the guardrail, instructor on the radio "a little faster, a little faster." Car was smooth as silk. Me, on the other hand....

 

You will get no argument from me on this one.

I have been doing DEs (not just “track days”) with instructors in the car for over 10 years now and I always learn of how to do something better or find out that some bad habit has wormed its way back into my driving. Being one who would be hard pressed to do the CA MINI driving school, I can also recommend the BMWCCA Chapter sponsored HPDE events as a more modest priced alternative. At least around here, they take these event, in particular the “education” part, very seriously and they attract very high caliber instructors. The instructors they use are qualified through a BMWCCA instructor training school.

 

Ok so I won't go into my driving background, but might it be possible this is not a driver issue but a vehicle issue? I would hope that when I drive my other car, that my driving skills would be the same. Really the point of the thread was to find out if others are experiencing "stability issues" with the JCW. I think that other professional drivers that report the same "stability" issues would have some driving skills, and they are reporting the same thing, but again not on every car. I had the opportunity to drive another S this weekend, and guess what, no issues. I guess it is possible that I change my driving style between cars. I really think there is something going on with both braking and the DCC. Do the cars at Mini school have DCC,

I did notice that the alignment did make a difference to the handling, things got more predictable, but still not stable. I am hoping that better tires will help, both times I drove another car they had much better tires. I know that the Conti DWS are pretty good tires, but they are a passenger car tire.

 

OK...I have to take the bait just a little. Tee hee (If no-one will brag for me, I guess I'll do it myself). Here's my driving history (The web-page spelled my name wrong, it's Stilwell). It's a summary, but it was on tracks like Mid-Ohio, Watkins Glen, Mosport, Road Atlanta etc.

Driver History Database - Warren Stilwell

The car I raced was a "spec" car, you could not out-horsepower, or out-modify, the other drivers. The adjustments were few, like ride height, rake, camber, the spec shock adjustments and front and rear sway bar. It was down to managing braking, turn-in and all the at-speed transitions that go along with it.

I'm comfortable saying that my criticism of the car's high speed handling is still just my opinion, but I'm pretty confident I know what I'm feeling. My 2008 Mini Cooper S wasn't behaving this way at high speeds either.