Had an interesting experience today.

My car had a routine visit to the Mini Store and I had a 2010 loaner for the day. My Mini Store folks provided me with exemplary service.

My car, a 2009, is a run-of-the mill MC with a sun roof, 16 inch wheels w/Turanza RFs, and an automatic transmission. It has about 4500 miles on it.

The loaner I had for the day was a run-of the mill MC, 16 inch wheels w/Turanza RFs, also an automatic, but without the sun roof. The loaner had 365 miles on it. The only other differences were that the 2010 did not have auto climate control and had leatherette seats.

My 2009 runs nicely and has adequate power. It has a little bit of a hesitation from a standing start while the transmission spools up (I don't know how else to describe it). I found that "spooling" feeling to be normal in all of the 2009s I drove on the way to becoming an owner - not objectionable, but also not invisible either. In all ways, I've found my MC to be a typical example of the breed. It has no problems and regularly returns about 34 mpg. I love it.

The 2010 loaner felt like it has a good bit more power than mine. It accellerated away from Orlando's 72 million traffic lights a good bit quicker than my car. It also had almost no "spool-up" in the transmission. During the time I had it the loaner got 31.7 mpg (albeit -- for just about 100 miles).

Questions: Has anyone else felt like there has been some substantial improvement in the drivability of the MC in 2010? Is it possible that all I was feeling was the difference between a sun-roof model and a non-sunroof model (I'm told that there is almost 125 lbs of additional weight with the sun-roof). Is the gearing the same between the two model years? Is the intake system the same? Are oxygen blue Minis simply faster than green ones?

Anyone have any thoughts?

 

I would bet you baby your baby!!

and

You drove that rental like you stole it!!

That's how you got to the next stoplight faster.

 

my 2008 manual had that hesitation, just pushed sport button every time. no more hesitation sport or no sport , ??????

 

Ummm...YEAH!!

 

That's probably part of it

Also, though, the car's computer definitely "learns" your driving habits and acts accordingly, so if your car has been driven conservatively relative to the loaner car, then it's quite possible that the loaner will accelerate more aggressively with similar driver input.

 

+1

 

Can the "learning" process be restarted? I will freely admit to driving the car very conservatively from the start.

 

I've been told in the past that if you disconnect the battery for a half hour or better the computer will reset. Don't know if that's true anymore, or on Mini's for that matter.
Also, if you do reset, you may wind up lowering your gas mileage.
Don't know that for sure either, just a thought.

 

Indeed, if you need to have the car move as soon as you accelerate from a stop, you must press the Sport button. In fact, for safety when I am at an intersection I know I need fast responsiveness, I push the sport button and then I don't have that awkward...

"ok, that person is waving me through hoping I will hurry and do it quick"
"come on mini lets go"
"mini I said lets go"
"GO!!!!"

with sport button it's:
"ok, that person is waving me through hoping I will hurry and do it quick"
"Aaaaaaaaah easy there w those loud revs you're scaring them"

and then when you press the sport button off at high revs, it's not fun either.

 

turbochargers "spool up." I dont think auto trannies really do that...

 

It could be a programmed drive-by-wire delay based partly on his driving style, but there can be a slight delay in an automatic transmission, too. For instance, my wife's truck doesn't react with movement quite as quickly as any of our manual transmission cars do. There is a slight delay between when the rpms rise and when the power is actually transmitted to the driveshaft.

 

I used the term because that is the most similar sensation that comes to mind. I'e had several turbo charged motors (Corvair to Porsche to Lotus) that all had a rather noticible hesitation in accelleration while something came up to pressure. It clearly is not the motor because you can hear the motor doing its thing just fine, but the activity at the end of the crankshaft is not converted to forward motion with any sort of immediacy. Some in my group used to talk about some of the old turbohydro transmissions "spooling" up the torque converter (we spoke Latin in those days as I remember).

The Mini does it so predictably thaat I've concluded that it is a design issue rather than one of something not performing properly. My 09 does it; all of the 09s and 08s that I drove on the way to buying my car did it. But the 10 that I had as a loaner did not and, accordingly, to my tastes, the 10 was a much more pleasant car because it didn't. I, like most here, deal with the issue on a day to day basis by "DS"ing my car -- at least I do when I remember to hit the button. I just thought that if there had been a software change, or perhaps a redesign to the intake system that could be easily retrofitted to my 09, that I'd be standing in line at the parts counter.

Apparently there is not a difference, except that whic I feel in my tailfeathers.

But it was a nice feeling.

 

There shouldn't be any differences that affect the way it accelerates from a stop.

 

I would be careful about disconnecting the battery. My R56 got disconnected and a window would not stay rolled up. I tried to reset them with no luck. The car needed to go to East Bay MINI to have the computer reloaded.