I think Honda may have built this car. Other than one TSB for whatever, at 31,000 miles has been flawless. Also, I just drove on a long trip from central California to Tombstone, Arizona, and back and got 37.3 mpg driving fairly high speeds, about 2mpg better than my '12S manual.
After two MINIS bought off the lot, I finally ordered one and I really have the options that I wanted and not paying for the ones that I would never use ( i.e. sunroof).
Others like the "rawness" of the R53's, but I really like the the quiet of the F series at high freeway speeds. And the handling is spot on.
My '08s had the sport suspension and with the horrible Dunlaps would skip over any road joint and the radio was almost useless. I bought my '12s with 16's and the standard suspension and the ride was an improvement, but at a handling cost.
Even though the F56 has a more compliant ride, it actually handles much better .