Owner of a brand new mini cooper 2006

Is it just me or is the front seat incredibly hard to adjust for a comfortable driving position? open to any tricks i can use or try. I know you can adjust steering wheel and the four other positions. Im 6 feet tall.

Also is 400 km on a 50 litre tank for the first tank used normal? That is only 8 km a litre? I m using 91 grade as recommended.

Car is working great otherwise.


Thanks,

 

I'm 6'4", I have my seat lowered to the max, the steering wheel raised to the highest, the seat slid so that my feet are in good position (my feet have to be kind of tillted to acomodate my legs), and the seat back pitch adjustded so that i can reach the shifter. Note, there is only about 4-5 inches of back leg room behind me and 2 inches from my head to the ceiling. I think I am at the very limit of someone who can comfortable fit in and drive a mini. I am very used to my position, if anyone should change it(at the dealer or something), i cannot motor untill its set right. My movements are down to muscle memory so seating position is very important. I tell the dealer, dont move my seat.

About your gasmilage, I think that equates to about 19 miles a gallon, which could be about right for a brand new not even broken in car. I dont recall what i got way back then, it was sept of 02; to long for me to recall acurately.

 

Great information.

I think it is just extremely difficult to get it back where you have it as confortable if if gets moved.

Also. do you have any thoughts on my second question about fuel consumption. I have a cvt automatic too by the way.

 

Your first couple tanks of gas will not have the greatest fuel economy. The car is 'tight' and needs to be broken in. Over time fuel economy will get better. How much better depends on what type of driving and your driving style.

The seat adjustment can be tricky at first. As you raise the seat, the amount of recline decreases. You really have to play around with different configurations.

For the record, I know of a 6'8" MINI owner who fits comfortably in his ride with a helmet on for track days

 

Great! Thanks for the info. Its funny that the seat seemed fine from the dealership and I mistakenly took it to a hand car wash and vacuum and they adjusted the seat :(. I havent been able to find that sweet spot since.

I will wait until a few tanks more and will try to burn in the engine a little.

 

well in imperial units. it is 19 mpg. My old toyota tercel 97 5 speed got 33 mpg i guess in the city. 8.7 gallon tank which would go about 300 miles. and that was using low grade fuel. hope the mini will improve as it is a cvt and premium fuel is being used.

 

Getting 33mpg in the city would be hard to do. Prepair to drive like a granny.

 

I drive a mix of city and country. (One hour commute starts out pretty smooth sailing and turns into solid city). Had my mini 3 weeks now and according to the computer I am getting 33MPG average. I'm not a race car driver but I am a new stick driver (which I would say LOWERS my fuel efficiency since I'm not using the gears effectively yet). If your average doesn't improve in the next few weeks I would worry unless you are REALLY pushing the car. (You aren't are you? Remember the manual says nothing over 4000RPMs for the 'just a Cooper' until you hit 1200 miles.)

 

I am 6ft tall and have found in order to get the perfect spot for my seat the key is in the height as well

 

If you need more rearward tilt to the seat bottom cushion, a trick is to place washers under the front seat mounting brackets (between bracket and car floor). Don't use more than 2 or so washers, and make darned sure there's a lot of "bolt" grabbing those threads since that's a safety issue... it worked for me. It's a minor change but made a difference in how my back feels.

I agree these seats are a beast to adjust, especially seatback "rake" since that lever is such a pain to reach - worse by far than the "dial" on the older VW seats - at least that was reachable and infinitely adjustable!

I got to take a significant drive in an '07 S - the seats are as difficult to adjust, but are really comfy - more supportive in the right places, and a higher quality, denser fabric. Still an ergonomic nightmare to adjust, though

Oh - the fuel mileage thing: Once it breaks in that improves, unless you also have the same problem as I do - the linkage between the driver's seat and the pedals presses down a little hard on the gas pedal. No known cure.

 

I am suffering from that problem as well. Is there a support group for it?

To add a data point, my MINI is a little over a month old now. Very little pure highway driving--I'm at 1400 miles and most of the miles are city / back roads. My miles per gallon has been around 23 mpg so far (but see above--I drive fairly spiritedly at times). I will be hitting the interstate for a couple of hours each way this weekend--we'll see how my mileage is when I'm on cruise control for the whole trip...

 

Great advice from all and found some good threads on seats and peoples solutions. Thanks to all. Love this website. One of the threads below:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...eat+adjustment

 

Here is some great advice I am about to try from another thread. Drivers that tried this got immediate results of improvement.


>>i had the sore back problems with the seat on the test drive and it was one of my concerns before ordering the car. at the bmw preformance driving center in spartanburg, sc they taught us what bmw considers a proper driving position. and how to adjust the seat to achieve that position. i got the dealer to let me take the mini on a long test drive, about 45 mins., and i twiddled with the adjustments the whole time and had some success. i first adjusted the seat the "bmw way." to do that, first adjust the height, raise the seat up until your head is one hand width below the roof. that is with your hand on it's edge. next slide the seat forward or backward until you can press the clutch pedal down and keep your heel on the floor under the clutch. in other words you're not stretching your leg to depress the clutch pedal, but your thigh is still resting on the seat. then adjust the back rake angle so that your with your arms straight out over the steering wheel your wrists hit the top of the steering wheel. now adjust the tilt on the steering wheel so that the top is about shoulder height. i found that using this as my starting point i could make any model seat not hurt my back, with some tweaking. i used a little more backrest
rake angle, a little less height and the steerting as low as it would go. i noticed also that the sunroof affects the height adjustment rule, if you adjust up to one hand width you will be too low. in the model with the sunroof the height worked best at about two fingers below the sunroof. the bottom line is that, while i felt way too high in the car, when the seat bottom cushion was nearly level the seat felt the most comforable, whatever mini i tried this in. and i tried it in alot of them. although, the sport seat with the leather was the most comfy one. it seems to have more give than the leatherette. i hope this helps.

 

Well I am happy to say the above seems to working. I almost feel like im in a plane cockpit now and driving is more intense. I used the latter steps as I do have the full sunroof so apprx two fingers of space from the roof to my head and presto a feeling of comfort. I never used to sit this way in previous cars and maybe i should have all along. Thanks to all!