I picked up my Spice Orange MCS last March, and thought I'd share a few thoughts about the car, especially about various configuration options, after my roughly 8 months of ownership.

• It's a blast to drive. No surprise here, but that six-speed manual is great, handling is great, and it sounds great.
• I didn't really notice turbo lag or torque steer during my test drives, but now that I've driven my own car harder and longer, I notice this a lot more. It's not an issue most of the time, but I can see how tracking the car would require some adaptation to driving technique to compensate. It's a lot harder to smoothly accelerate through a corner when that turbo kicks in, compared to my prior non-turbo cars. But in a straight line, that same turbo kick is a thing of wonder.
• The Harmon Kardon stereo is not great. In fact, it's probably the most disappointing part of the whole package. Bass is lacking, and midrange is "muddled". MP3s played from the USB port sound quite a bit better than XM radio, for some reason, but none of it sounds as good as it should.
• I probably should not have gotten the sport suspension. I won't have a final verdict on this until I replace the run-flats with regular tires with flexible, shock-absorbing sidewalls, but as is the ride is quite firm. It's not uncommon to drive over a bump on the freeway and be launched off the seat (to bounce against the lap belt). But, the firm ride is fun, so maybe with a regular suspension I'd regret it.
• The adaptive headlights are wonderful. This seems like a feature that should be on all cars.
• I'm not a huge guy, but I find the cloth seats a little narrow. The side bolsters in particular feel a bit too aggressive for way I like to position my left leg. I believe the leather seats are wider, so in retrospect I should have done an A/B comparison and given the leather seats real consideration (despite their crazy price).
• Run-flats probably work, but I'm not convinced they're worth it. I found a screw in one tire, and then noticed the tire slowly leaking air, so I called around to get it patched. Turns out a lot of tire places won't patch run-flats. The place I found that would patch it did a crappy job and the tire continued leaking, so finally I replaced it. Turns out run-flats are expensive, too. Next time, I'll get non-run-flats. Also, during this whole tire-leak saga, the on board computer never noticed a problem with the tires. Guess they need to be really low before the computer senses it.
• Body work is expensive. I got rear-ended by a minivan at an intersection. Very low-speed accident, but it scraped up the rear bumper and bent it in a little, plus scratched the exhaust tips. Total cost to repair: about $2100. Glad the minivan driver was insured.

 

Thanks for the feedback Seabeast! As we put more miles on our cars, it's natural to come across certain things that we may have done differently. But as long as the good times out number the bad, then Mini life is still good!

 

interesting. get rid of those runflats though, should help

 

I have the sport suspension, the base 15' wheels, and non-RFTs. I find the ride to be firm, but acceptable. I certainly don't get thrown off of the seat.