i have the non hk stereo on my 2013 justa countryman and i take longer drivers pretty often ( hour plus) and drive a total of 8 hours road trip at least once a month to visit family and usually on these long drives my volume automatically lowers to almost mute no matter what level it was previously on and doesn't let me raise it for sometimes up to 10 minutes. i've turned the "speed" volume off and on and that doesn't fix it at all. i've played with the settings and nothing has worked. it happens no matter how im listening to audio whether its the radio, aux, apple adapter, music, podcast. i've taken it to the dealership to see if they can fix it and they as always say "couldn't replicate" or nothings wrong.

i'm just wondering if other poeple have gone through this similar issue and how did they fix it?
i've looked into aftermarket head units but i couldn't find any bracket holder for the car.

 

Yes, back when I first got my Countryman in 2015, I noticed the exact same thing. When playing music at full volume for a long period of time, the system starts overheating and automatically drops the volume to lower the heat and cool down.

I'm surprised the guys at MINI didn't know about this though.

I don't know whether changing the head unit is a better option than just adding more power though. From my understanding, the MINI console control panel and stereo are somewhat integrated, and there may be some negative issues with removing and/or replacing the stereo head unit. Not to mention there doesn't seem to be a dedicated or good spot for a normal head unit. So would it ruin the look of the whole console area?

I ended up upgrading my whole system around the car, rather than changing to another head unit.

 

 

check out my post in the thread just below this one, titled, "my mini cooper audio upgrade experience".

I posted everything in detail.

 

 

Yeah, many MINI owners feel the same way. The stock stereo and speakers really are not good at all.

Even the Harmon Kardon system which MINI offers as an upgrade is not very good. Many owners who bought the HK upgraded system have expressed negative opinions about it.

And the fact that they only made room for 4" speakers in the doors was a very poor design decision by MINI as well. That basically made it extremely difficult to upgrade to larger size speakers...virtually impossible for the front doors for sure.

That's why I had to upgrade the audio system. I would have been waaaay too unhappy and miserable with just the stock system.