A mostly fair comparison between the three. I don't understand the Mini's poor subjective 'steering' rating though. We'll see, maybe R&T will publish my letter asking why this ultra quick and reasonably good feeling rack faired so poorly against the other two.

I can't wait to latch onto either of the above in a track environment

 

It is hard to imagine how fwd steering can get much better (or quicker) than the Mini's. Did they publish ratio specs?

 

The Mini test was a JCW car with 18" wheels. FYI

Mini 14.4:1

Si 14.6:1

GTI 16.1:1


They focused on the Minis "nervousness" more than once...their words not mine. how this car can be called nervous around town is beyond me; around town speeds are generally not high enough to expose such traits. Oh well, I would still rather have the Mini.

 

Deltas in the noise level. In the performace area, all were equal within one or two percent.

But I agree on the pricing, let's all add overly expensive, heavy wheels as options! Sheeze, for that price, they could have almost bought SSR Comps in 16x7.5 with some serious stickies!

Matt

 

The Trade "MAG's" to me just light entertainment, something to pass the time. While waiting at the airport...
What i have noticed is that if, a car manufacture dose not spend a lot off $$. They do not give them a favorable report
I would like to make up my own mind, no some "Mag" tell me what I should like/buy...........

Just my view on Trade Mag's........ I read "Crains Automotive News" no nonsense articles about the cars

 

My Mini now uses the same Michelins as the Si; there waaaay more comfortable, stickier in dry and wet environments by a good margin and the 205/45/17s weigh just 19lbs. A seriously light passenger tire. I wonder what those 18" anchors weigh???

 

I don't know, I personally highly value the magazine test reports. I've always found them to be very fair after knowing or owning a given vehicle and never believed their opinions were "bought" through adverts. Short dealer-chaperoned test drives don't do it for me... I need a few hundred miles through my favorite twisties before I can really tell what the car is all about. I certainly find the magazines tests much more informative than posting "should I buy this car" on any internet board, or relying what my buddy said. Outside of the moto-journalists, most people simply don't have enough experience with different cars to form a knowledgeable opinion and most will usually try and justify their own purchases.

I find this test to be very fair, you just need to understand the market they cater to. The average R&T reader will not go through the hassle of researching what aftermarket wheels/parts/mods to buy and do, they'll just pick from the dealers' menus. Then, from an all-around practicality point of view, if you can get a refined car that rides more comfortably, seats more people (comfortably), carries more luggage, yet still has comparable performance/EPA/cost numbers.... then it's a no brainer which should get voted #1 in the test..... for the *average* enthusiast driver. You just need to pick and choose which attributes are most important to you and then choose which car works best. The article repeated implies that the Mini should be the choice for "the hard-core enthusiast, the purist, the occasional track day, the serious back-road bomber, etc."

I have a MCS on order now, would I even think of canceling it because those cars were rated higher? No way.... this test completely reinforces why I chose the MCS in the first place. I wanted the hard, raw, unrefined drive of the Mini. I wanted something loud, uncomfortable and flighty if it will prove to be the ultimate twisty carving machine. I wanted something with really character that can come as close as possible to delivering the overall *fun* sensation that I now enjoy with my motorcycle. And a smooth, refined, fast grocery-getter is not it.... been there, done that.

I officially declare myself no longer an average enthusiast.

 

how many people add a wheel option package to a car that adds 5-10% to the total car price?

I agree that the car mag reveiwers have good experience, but a couple of things to keep in mind...

1) The tend to downrate things that aren't standard in the human interface, because in the days to weeks they have the car to play with, they don't get used to them.

2) You have to keep in mind favoritism and bias. In favoritism, in one supercar comapro, a Lambo clutch fried so it couldn't even finish the eval, and it didn't get a DNF! It ranked, don't know about you, but I like to be able to drive the cars I buy. When the Z4 came out, lots of the reviews talked about Z3 handling issues, especially in the M, that were never mentioned in the review articles when the Z3 came out! What, they didn't notice? Gimme a break..... I can't even count the number of times I've seen technical performance winners getting ranked lower because of the "intangables" Read "the other car won, but I like brand XYZ better, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it!" At least the break out the sections and wieghtings, so if you care, you can back out the real results from the bias and favoritism.

Take the reviews for what they're worth. But also keep an eye on optioning, how the current numbers compare to previeous test results and the like.

Matt

 

I remember a pattern across some of the earlier MINI comparo reviews. It would come in 2nd or 3rd in the official results, but when asked something along the lines of - "Which of these would you want in your garage?" - the vast majority of testers went with the MINI.

 

Didn't elaborate much before but, yes, you do need to take some care when you read the reviews. Other examples:
- You need to read between the lines a bit. Mags rarely outright slam a car, they'll just struggle to find good things to say about it, and you can tell when they're searching.
- Take one test result with a grain of salt, two with some more faith, and many tests that say the same thing with a lot of faith.

I happen to often agree with the subjective intangibles that may swing journalists from voting for the technical performance winners. How often do we (can we) really drive these cars at their ultimate limits on public roads?.... if not *most of the time* then the subjective intangibles matter... a lot. I come from motorcycledom and the level of performance is so ridiculously high (and rider skill so comparably low, on average) that voting for a technical performance winner becomes about as useful as comparing manufacturer brochure specifications.... we want to know what the journalists *feel*.

I too want to test any vehicle that I would buy, but rarely find it possible to do so in a sporty configuration. The two other cars I was seriously considering were the 6spd, RWD 330i w/sport package, and 6spd, 3.2 A4 Quattro w/sport package. Sport package??... manual shift??.... on a *demo* .

[90+% of the sales around where I live are AWD, standard suspender automatics - not very inspiring to test drive ]

One more thing... It was my understanding that the Manufacturer chooses the config of the car for a magazine test. I've read many a comparison article where the Mags say to the manufacturer, "we'd like to include your xx car in a comparison test with yy and zz, so send us your best in that class." No way could R&T have special ordered that JCW... or the article would come out in June..

 

A competent driver in a competent machine wins...silencing the naysayers The Mini is the better performance car...18" anchors aside.

 

Someone should write a good letter to R&T. The choice to go with the JCW wheels really crippled the MINI on the price and performance fronts. No fair!!

 

Then it's really MiniUSA that's screwing up! I'm not too sure why they push that expensive crap!

Sometimes bigger isn't really better. But at least they aren't pushing 24s! Why those (and bigger) get put on heavy SUVs and the like is really beyond me. Talk about dinged tires and rims!

Matt

 

The GTI was also running 18" wheels (and they look heavy), although I see that it is only a $750 option, and no doubt had higher performance tires than the MINI's runflats.

 

I do. It's expensive.

mb

 

It would cost R&T nothing to have a "Manufacturer's Response" at the end of each article where things like this could be addressed. Of course, R&T isn't interested in fairness; they're editorializing and want to be able to slant things toward their advertisers if they choose to.

 

Overall the articly was fairly accurate on the driving impressions. You have to read out of it what you want. And i think it hit it on the head .. this IS the enthusiast car.

It's hard understand the contradicting in the writing on the interior.. they knock it in the ratings and yet call it "entertaining, blending function and funky"

BUT the biggest concern I have is with the test number.. especially the brakes..

They list 10.9in rotors... Um, the JCW has 11.5" rotors up front... and why did the 2003 MCS stop sooo much quicker than the JCW did here.. 121/217 compared to 122/226

Slalom time was also much faster in the 2003.. maybe this WAS the wheels however.

My final thought, that I didn't understand.. I'mnot sure what they were looking for.. the MCS was the best track/twisty runner, but not so hot around town.. the GTI was the best around town, but suffered on the track.. the Si did everything just fine, but still wasn't good enough to win.. I guess the winner jsut depends on what you want out of the vehicle.

Deep thoughts from Wookie...

 

Possibly the big wheels again. Polar moment of inertia and all. The further away mass is from the axis of rotation, the more difficult it is to get it to stop moving.

 

And it's less of a delta than you'd think. The best guess I can make on the stopping distance change for lighter wheel/tire combos is the ability of less unsprung mass to maintain intimate contact with the road.

It can't really be explained by the extra kinetic energy in both the linear velocity and the rotational moment, but I don't know how to calculate an estimate on the contact effects...

Matt

 

Yes, exactly.

 

You're the physics dude, but from my recollection of my rudimentary college physics, albeit while studying computer science, I seem to recall the polar moment of inertia increases by the square of the distance from the axis of rotation, which explains why 18" rims are significantly worse for acceleration and braking than smaller rims, even if overall (static) mass doesn't change.

But, hey, it's been a while. If I'm wrong, tell me.

 

wheels, power, $, bla bla bla. look who got the full 20 points for driving excitement and who did not?

nuf said...

 

You're right on the square dependance, but the rim isn't all the way out at the tread, and the car weighs A LOT! So while the square law applies, the kinetic energy in the wheel is a small percentage of the total kinetic energy of the moving car as a whole. And it's this total that the brakes have to dissipate....

Matt

Here's the link to the math....
https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...08&postcount=1

 

Nice analysis. I'm curious: What happens when you calculate based on a assumption that a greater percentage (say, 75%) of the rim mass is near its outer diameter? Does it make much of a difference in the rotational/total kinetic energy ratio? Or is that too hard to model?

 

The reason I did it was all the BS I was seeing (one pound off the wheel is like 8 lbs off the car for 0-60 and 1/4 mile times). Here are the limits....

If ALL the mass is at the tread, the weight savings is 2x just taking it off the car (like a rear seat delete). If all the mass is on the hub with r essentially 0, it's 1x.

Matt