Well, the wife and I just took the plunge. After originally looking at 07 or 08 used Mini's, we decided to buy new. We bought new for two main reasons: (1) was scared of the mini stories of costly and frequent repairs (2) used car prices recently went up. So we picked up a White Silver Mini, 2011, auto-transmission, heated seats, blue tooth and a couple other minor options. Oh, we did have the windows tinted at the dealership but didn't get strips. I kinda like strips but was pinching pennies at the time. Dealer really didn't offer much discount, they only had 4 new (regular) minis on the lot at the time.

I was curious as to what are the most popular add-ons or accessories people tend to purchase for their mini.

Thanks
Ken

 

A set of Enkei RPF1's and Hoosier A6s? If I had the money, that would be my first accessory!

 

Bentley manual, and roadside assistance.

Just kidding about the roadside assistance. Serious about the manual, though. It was the first thing I purchased, same day as I bought the car.

 

By popular add-ons, are you talking about bling or handling parts or horsepower parts.

 

get a short antenna. the regular one is way too long. mini sales oem ones or you can go aftermarket. i have no reception problems with mini oem sport antenna

 

+1--brought my Craven Speed Shorty to the dealer's to pick up my JWC. The issued antenna makes the car look like a radio remote control car. No issues with reception/Sirius. Also check out Lightinsight.

 

Shorty antenna!

 

Check out the "LightInSight" lens for the windshield if you ever have trouble seeing traffic lights overhead. The "shorty" antennae are nice from an aesthetic standpoint, but if you listen to the radio a lot, keep in mind that reception will suffer with a lot of the shorties out there.

I would strongly suggest getting a "clear bra" applied to the front of the car. Between the soft paint and blunt nose, the MINI is absolutely notorious for picking up rock chips on the front end. I mistakenly waited about a month before having the bra applied on my wife's car and ended up with almost a dozen rock chips that I had to repair before getting the bra put on. When my MINI arrived, I had it at the installer's shop the next morning to avoid the same problem.

 

One of my first was the lightinsight for the windshield so you don't have to bend your neck to see the traffic lights. Go to lightinsight.com for more info.

 

Gee, I never had even the slightest desire for a different antenna - until I read THAT. Now I want one.

 

I just ordered mine! What an awesome thing, because I'm pretty tall to begin with so I was a little annoyed that at most stops I have to crane my neck. Soo glad I checked out this thread. It says 2-3 weeks shipping though, did anyone else get theirs quicker than that?

 

I just removed my antenna altogether. Now I just have the little black base thing, it looks fine and my reception is virtually unchanged.

 

Wow, that's amazing. I don't understand how it could still get reception without an antennae...but now I want to try it haha

 

It could just be that I live in a relatively small area so none of the transmitters are terribly far away. In in any case, it can't hurt to give it a shot!

 

With stations that are strong enough or close enough, there's a chance that you'll still receive them, and as dannyhavok said, there's no harm in trying. With mine, the FM reception goes to crap with the aluminum shorty antenna installed.

 

Air Fresheners.....

 

Was there a hole left that you had to plug or something? I want to remove my rear wiper and I know you have to put a rubber stopper in the hole. So I'm wondering if you have to do something similar if removing the antennae?

 

There is a hole of sorts, but it's just a little indent for the antenna to screw into, it doesn't seem to go anywhere, so I've just left it empty. I'd been planning to put a quick shot of plasti-dip in there just to keep the water out, but no harm so far.

 

Hmm I see. I'll have to check it out tomorrow morning when I do some work on my mini.

 

+1 on the clear bra!

I like the longer antennae and the RC car look!

Dave

 

Yep - the antenna receptacle is just a blind threaded hole. You could leave it empty, put a piece of electrical tape over it, fill it with some black silicone, or find a black-coated machine screw with a rounded head to fill it.

 

On my '10 Clubman there are 2 antenna's. One of course is the RC car 'whip' antenna, the other is in the rear side window on drivers side.....looks like a defroster wire. When I take off the 'whip' antenna, FM still works fine but AM almost entirely stops working.
Posters on other threads here say that the radio will automatically choose the best of the 2 antennas. Maybe true for FM?, but AM just does not work without the 'whip'.

 

I tested your theory today and tried a local AM station without the antenna.. came in fine. Again, the broadcast tower is probably only 10KM from where I was parked, so that's probably a factor.

 

I tried again today. Last time I tried at night when many AM stations are required to operate at a lower power.

Today without the roof antenna, on AM, I got several local stations OK but dropped the distant stations. (~30 miles away with mountains in-between). Some other stations not so far away picked up more static.

When I tried the same on FM the roof antenna made no difference at all. Even if I tuned in a weak station.... roof antenna on or off made no difference.

 

That's the nature of the difference between AM and FM. As a received AM signal gets weaker, the reception gradually (over the space of many miles) gets quieter and more prone to static. With an FM signal, the reception stays the same as the signal gets weaker, right up until the point where the reception drops off suddenly in the space of only a few miles. So as long as the radio can pick it up at all, a weak FM signal and a strong FM signal sound pretty much the same.

The only way to really test the FM reception is to put the stock antenna on, drive away from a station until it drops out entirely, then put the aftermarket antenna on and see how far you have to drive back toward the station before you pick up the signal cleanly again.