Soooo . . . how about them cars, huh?

Sorry, just trying to keep this from becoming a "Save slag" (or "ban slag") thread. I happen to be more interested in discussing the cars -- nothing personal.

\/ Thank you, ashboomstick

 

Ummmm, better fuel economy, higher horsepower, higher amount of torque stock.

Empirical data says yes.

 

C4 did not take a "break from here"... he was banned. I do agree that some posters need to take a break... those that can't keep their posts on topic.. and continue to derail this discussion with personal attacks.

 

If adding torque results in obnoxious torque steer... then no, this does not enhance the driving experience... it detracts.

If adding HP results in take aways at the top end... then no, this does not enhance the driving experience... it detracts.

As for fuel economy... I would be on the Honda Fit or Toyota Yaris discussion forums if that was a weighted factor in my "driving experience"...

Again... the driving enthusiast looks beyond the " Empirical data" and to the driving experience itself. The Ford F150 has higher HP and Torque... and a Fit or Yaris return superior gas mileage... but the driving experience of these vehicles does not hold any interest to me.

 

I love it, you really are a class act.

You claim that the R53 is superior in every way, and then when presented with evidence that proves otherwise, you simply claim that it isn't a superior driving experience.

And yet, on the track, a stock R56 outperforms a stock R53 in every conceivable way. But the empirical data is irrelevant, right? Selective data mining for the win.

 

If you feel that obnoxious torque steer and sudden cut off of power is a superior driving enthusiast experience fine... but IMO it is not.

If we are going strictly on empirical data... then I assume that the "larger" speedo in the R56 makes it a superior driving enthusiasts automobile? After all, the R56 speedo is superior in size than the R53 speedo... therefore this must translate to the R56 being a superior driving enthusiasts automobile?... that is after all what the empirical data tells us...

Sorry, but I simply don't see it that way. Experience beats empirical data every time... I will even add that empirical data is something that drives the masses in making buy decisions... but certainly not a driving enthusiast.. who would weigh the experience as the final arbitrator... regardless of what the empirical data suggested.

 

Only speaking for myself, this is irrelevant.

If the R56 was WAY faster than an R53 (which it is not) and handled FAR better, which it does not ...the car would still hold no interest for me, just like a lot of cars that perform "better" hold no interest for me.

The concept of "better" needs to be left to ones personal judgment, which is what this entire thread was about ...once upon a time.

As a complete package the R56 fails to impress me ...no matter by how much it supposedly outperforms the R53, on the track, in no matter what conceivable way.

When this thread got started it wasn't about which car was better. It was about whether or not some folks preferred the R53 to the R56.

The answer is yes ...some of us do.

Dean.

 

http://www.motoringfile.com/section/sales/

Worldwide Mini Sales up 13% for January

Mini sales increase 20% for January

BMW and MINI sales up for 2007



Wow, what a great data analysis, I agree sales must be in 'freefall'.

 

World wide sales has other market factors. For instance nearly %25 of all MINI sales worldwide is the diesel model... hardly the first choice of the driving enthusiast. Look at the sales statistics in the US market... free fall.

 

I did several pages ago. I quoted the same source data of us sales for every month. Almost every month was an increase in US sales except for the few you chose to selectively quote.

 

The problem with the latest sales figures is that MINIUSA no longer releases the actual breakdown between models. In the past, you were able to subtract convertible sales vs R56 hardtop sales and so on. But now, MINIUSA only releases a total figure, making it more difficult to determine which models performed best in terms of sales on a given month , etc. In previous months/years, R52 convertible sales accounted for around 15%-20% of the total sales for any month. Has that changed? Now we don't have a sure way of knowing so.

 

Once again, one must look beyond the empirical sales data. Using your example of January sales for 2008... MINI claims USA sales are up 20% YTY (year to year)... and they are absolutely correct. However to understand the actual sales trend, one must look beyond this empirical data... as the January 2007 sales they are comparing to is an abnormality... due to the R56 retooling and the limited reach to market for the month of January 2007.

The actual baseline is simple enough to establish, we do this all the time in marketing. Simply average the R53 era for the month in question... in this case January... this will establish your baseline. Now when you do the YTY for January 2008 R56 sales against the baseline... you are down %25... and that is defined as free fall in this industry. Marketing is what I do for a living... and trust me... BMW is well aware they have a serious issue with R56 sales... and some marketing executive is getting his butt chewed on this daily...

 

Slag,

I can honestly see where you're coming from. I wouldn't get rid of my r53 for anything (87 Porsche) **joke**). I love this car and have been able to compare it to the r56s, and would still choose it after the comparison. There is a deep connection that you get with the whine of the supercharger, the back burble of the exhaust. The r53 is phenomenally fun! But let's be perfectly honest. You showing how displeased you are with r56 isn't going to make BMW bring the r53 back. I also highly doubt that you are going to change the mind of an r56 or r53 owner. Everyone is entitled to their own likes and dislikes, but one man,..hell! everyone on NAM isn't going to bring the r53 back. I think about it from time to time, "what if I total my car? the newest car I would get is an 06!''. Your fight to bring back the r53 isn't going to have a happy ending. It's awesome that your voicing your opinion, but I feel that your doing so thinking that your going to make a difference.

 

Ok come on people we are suppose to be different from the honda and the chevy and ford people, grow up we are suppose to be better than that...why in the world are we arguing on which one is better like little children...they both handle great one looks alittle different from the other and one is supercharged and the other is turboed but yet they are both mini's

i have a R53 because i love the sound of the supercharger and still the look of a tiny car to remind me of the old school ones and cant forget the wonderful handling....once i got my car i loved the most how mini owners are like the best people ever and they like to help each other out for the love of the car and dont talk crap like chevy and ford owners do so how about we keep it that way k thnx

 

I do data analysis for a living as well. In general data is looked at as a whole and not selectively. Again, you are not looking at the whole. If you look at the whole and not just selective months, US sales are up. That sales executive may be breathing a sigh of relief. I just checked the sales figures for 06. They were down almost every month in 06 from 05, indicating a stagnant brand. The 07 uptick may have saved his butt!!!

ClubmanS, as far as convertibles go, the sales figures I looked at did break down number of convertible sales, it appeared to be roughly a constant number of cars a month in all years and months since its inception, although 07 converts may have been down on the average of 1-200 cars a month.

 

I don't think the R53 will ever be back either (In its original form) but one can hope that the v3.0 of the next MINI will indeed bring back some the visceral driving experience and visual cues that made the original BMW MINI such a worldwide hit. MINI reads these forums on a daily basis. They do pay attention to what people are saying about their product. After all, we the customers, are the ones voting with our wallets and putting the food on their tables. The single biggest mistake a car company can make is to shun out and ignore customer feedback. It is a deadly trap on which more than one successful automaker has fallen into (See the decline of Mercedes Benz in the 1990's). BMW is one of the most successful car companies in the world. Still independently owned by the very rich, but very low profile Quandt family. Obviously the MINI success story is proof that these people know very well what they are doing. But with resounding success also comes a time of resounding blindness and arrogance. Rule #2 any automaker should always observe is to never become complacent! " Oh now that we have 50K fanatical MINI owners, from now own we can lower the quality of the product, charge more and they will still buy it...because well they all are that gullible!" (before anyone starts throwing fire darts at me is just a figurative example to illustrate my point nothing more, nothing less). Look at what happened to Coca-Cola in the '80s. One day they decided to change the original formula and come up with a brand new flavor. People aren't idiots! A product that up to that point had been around for 80-90 years and then the Coke execs decide to shelve the original formula that has brought fortunes to them in favor of a new receipe that tasted like crap. Enough people protested the change and demanded the return of the original Coke flavor, now known as Classic Coke. While the R56 departure is not as radical as the "New" coke formula, you can still draw a parallel between the 2 stories. After all MINI and Coke have been very successful brands with products wanted the world over. As they say...The squeaky wheel gets the grease. Maybe the Slags of the world making enough noise inside the cage will make MINI realize that one of the most iconic cars in the history of transportation can not be sanitized too much or transformed into a FWD BMW with a MINI body bolted on top of it. Hyundai can afford to change the philosophy of their Elantra every 5 years or as many times as they please... Because frankly, no one cares about the Elantra..is a car with no baggage, no heritage, no following, no enthusiasm and no community built around it. But the MINI is a very different story. A car that since its inception in the 1950's has been carefully crafted and has a following that spans over generations and decades. You don't want to mess with that kind of success and BMW knows that very well.

 

Go run MINI COOPER on craigslist.org under automobiles. I look there every couple weeks, and there seem to be PLENTY of people selling pre R56 Minis for anyone who feels the screaming need for one. The only thing this entire thread and forum makes me sorry about is the selling of my very nice original 62 Cooper. Damn my garage for not being bigger! I just could NOT bring myself to sell that Grinnall Scorpion. Hey, I've got it...how about if BMW puts their brains into building the ultimate three wheeler ala Morgan Super Sports? You want a white knuckle raw driving experience, you need to ride in a Grinnall Scorpion. Beyond it's K series BMW cycle engine (well proven...they don't call it The Brick for nothin!) it's a fairly simple vehicle that is either exhilarating or terrifying, depending on your point of view. When your vehicle weighs about 860 lbs and you're pumping a minimum of 130 hp (unmodified...a couple of the UK brethren have turbo'd theirs way into the 200+ hp range on the dyno) to that big single rear wheel, you're talkin' visceral, boys. Any takers?? Meanwhile, if you want to save the R53, save your money and buy a FEW while there are still some low mileage examples around, pick a few different colors and call it your oversized rolling Jelly Belly collection, thereby putting your money where your mouth and your "love" is. How about it??? Meanwhile, I'm going to keep driving my so far trouble free R56 because it's PAID FOR. When it dies at 45k, I guess I'll call up Slag and put on my knee pads. I just don't see that happening by what I'm feeling when I drive right now.

 

^^ ClubmanS: Well, let's consider a similar product sold by a similar company -- hmmm, how about the 3-series sold by BMW.
The same discussion has been going on for decades in that community. And if you're an E30 owner hoping that BMW will realize the error of its ways with the E36, E46 and E90 and return to being a simple, no doo-dads, "driving enthusiast", purist vehicle -- well, I think you'll be waiting a bit longer.

Fact is few, if any, new vehicle generations are embraced by "enthusiasts" (aka owners) of the previous generation -- the WRX and Evo are going through that now (and I'm only refering to vehicles that develop a cult -- not the Camrys which may indeed be praised with every generation). Manufacturers aren't going to base decissions on the dissenting squeals coming from some "I-wish-my-car-hadn't-been-changed" owners -- not unless they see an impact to sales not attributable to other factors (like the economy).
And, without repeating 19 pages of posts, I and others don't feel that characterizations of US sales -- despite worldwide data to the contrary -- evidence a concern for BMW.

 

My '05 R53 is also paid for.....But I have no plans to sell it...ever! In fact, I have been looking into ways to preserve this car into posterity and pass it down to my children. Take it from me, a guy that used to switch cars every 2-3 years. I simply used to get bored with my cars. Not with this one. This one is a keeper. It is special. It gets better with age, like the finest wine. It is poetry on wheels...haha I am getting a bit carried over. I think Slag is indeed putting his money where his mouth is and actively seeking a '06 JCW GP, which quite frankly, can put any brand new R56 JCW stage 1 car to shame.

 

Actually BMW has reconciled with the "error of their ways" with the 3 series development.... And now ladies and gentleman we have the '08 BMW 135i! The 1-series is a clear throw back to the E30 days, albeit in a heavier and more sophisticated package. But one can't deny that the 1-series is BMW's response to years of criticism from enthusiasts and press alike about the 3-series becoming bigger and heavier with each passing generation.

 

^ I agree that the 135 is the best thing BMW has done in well-over a decade . . . but the 3-series marches on. . .
Maybe 15 years from now MINI will introduce a roadster to try to capture some earlier fans . . . but the R56, R55, R57, R60 and their succesors will march on.

 

If you were to ask me, I think the best Honda Accord ever made was the 3rd generation (With the flip headlights) made between 1986-1989. I had one of those, bought new in '89 for $15K (That was a lot of money back then, the equivalent of $25K today). It was a four door LX sedan, 5-speed manual (With cable operated clutch), a 2.0L 4 cylinder, 12-valve CARBURATED engine that made a whooping 98HP. '89 was the last year Accords could be bought with a carburated engine. If you wanted a fuel injected Accord, you had to buy the LX-i model and your power went up to 120HP. The LX was a DOG off the line. That car was painfully slow...you had to rev it (A 2002 Cooper 5-speed will easily smoke a '90 Accord and then some) but man it was FUN TO DRIVE. It was light weight, had sporty looks, superb driving position... In other words, the car looked and drove great and really stood above the junk Detroit made at the time and the other Japanese bore mobiles. It was very solidly built (For the standards of the time) and returned 45 MPH in the highway. Yes sir you heard that right....Mid 40's fuel economy many years before hybrids and direct injection. The Honda changed the car in 1990 with the 4th generation and the car became heavier, smoother but not nearly as engaging as the previous one. Fast forward nearly 20 years and today's Accord is almost a full size sedan. Sorry guys go to go..there is an emergency landing from an American Airlines plane coming from Chicago into Miami International Airport...Landing gear problems..... See ya!

 

^ but the CRX is still the best they've made

 

Yes I loved the CRX! The CRX Si was my fav car when they came out in '88 (Very MINI in handling and size) but at the time I needed 4 doors so the Accord it was. Side note: The AA MD-80 flight landed safely at MIA! Yay!

 

Those are some of the main "design flaws" that some people are flaunting about the R56 in this thread. It also follows the same styling trend that E30 junkies hate so much, and the styling difference between the E30 and the current gen 3 series are much more drastic than the R53 to the R56.

When it comes down to it, the R56 has:

Superior HP
Superior Torque
Superior gas mileage
Superior Interior quality
Superior Brakes

You can say that its not a huge gain in power all you want, but its not true. The R56 is on par with an R53 JCW, bone stock, and it costs significantly less. The R56 with the Stage I kit comes near the R53 GP, and the R56 Stage II car will surely at least be equal to it. I understand why you guys think the R53 feels better, I know because I owned one, and I completely agree, but saying that the R56 is not an enthusiasts car when it clearly outperforms its predecessor is naive in the extreme.

And I also realize that at this point there are only 2 people contributing to this thread that feel this way, and there's no hope in convincing them otherwise, because they are simply delusional, but I can't stand irrational people, and they always manage to get under my skin.