A friend of mine raced his with a CVT last Saturday and it was 7 seconds slower than a Lotus.

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sirron

 

How many dollars cheaper than a Lotus?

 

We ordered the CVT transmission on our Pepper White Cooper. Since the MINI will be my wife's daily driver, she can't and will not drive a manual stick shift car. Also traffic conditions in our city simply take away any benefits or "Driving Pleasures" associated with manual tranny cars. I do drive and have owned several stick shift cars. As much as I like meshing my own gears, with today's efficient and smooth working automatics I am not missing the stress and fatigue of working out a clutch in bumper to bumper urban traffic. If we lived in Montana, oh well that's a totally different story.

Having said that, we found the CVT in the MINI to be a very well performing and smooth transmission. Also it has the best of the 2 words...the convinience afforded of an automatic with the occassional "Fun Factor" of a manual shifter thanks to the Steptronic arragement. "Normal" and "Sport" shifting modes are the icing on the cake.

Also, automatic tranny equipped cars sell much easier and faster in our neck of the woods, so also future resale played an important role of ordering our MINI with the CVT.

But should you go with the Cooper 5 speed or Cooper 'S' 6 speed be prepared to have fun every time behind the wheel! .

 

Over here in England, all of the motoring press have said to steer well clear of the auto. Quoting it is probably the worst option on the extra's list. Not to mention the fact that it drains some of the power. :evil:

 

There is no way you can order a cooper S anywhere in europe with CVT. Bmw would'nt offer such a crap auto on a great car like the S. Yes its available on the one & cooper but not the S. Sorry :evil:

 

I ordered the CVT too.....I know how to drive stick but it still freaks me out and I just didn't want to buy a car that I was afraid to drive; I was thrilled when I found out they offered that option! And it is more fun then driving a standard automatic car....for those of you that think they are boring, I do recommend trying it because it is more fun than you would think (even though it is a little slower - I buy cars based primarily on appearance and speed is not always the most major factor). :smile: