I noticed that the front height on my new Clubman is almost exactly one inch HIGHER than the rear, measured from ground to top of wheel well.
The clearance in the front actually looks like a design flaw,(wrong springs) bad enough for me to schedule a meeting with the service manager.
If anything I'd think that the rear would be slightly higher than the front to accommodate the real possibility of two full size people in the back seats and some luggage in the boot.
The car, parked on the level, empty,looks as if I have a couple hundred pounds of stuff in the boot.

Anyone else notice this?

BTW, my '04 MCS is almost dead equal front to rear.

 

What are you measuring to? The top center of the wheel arch? If that's the case then, yes you will see that all (i think) Minis and BMW's) measure that way. It is simply the clearance cut from the front wheel arch to handle the bumps and the necessary turning requirements. The gaps if you will are always greater at the front. Now if the whole car looks like it is overall raised at the front end, or dropped at the rear then maybe you have an issue. Anyway, FWIW.

 

I've noticed that too, maybe they're using the same springs in the back as the regular Mini. I wonder if the engineers took into account the extra weight that's now in the boot area?

 

"Zakly" That's what I was thinking, while at the same time the rear looks O.K., more like the proper placement of the wheel relative to the wheel well.
The front literally looks, exactly whet it is one inch too high.
For my purposes I'd just assume have the rear match the front in height making the whole car higher and balanced (more ground clearance)...totally the opposite of my '04 MCS...lower and balanced (Much less ground clearance).
Best case for the Clubman would be to drop the front 1/2" and raise the back a 1/2" that way it would handle a little better.
I will try to get some pictures with the measurements, it is about 24mm difference.

 

Previously the appearance and even ride just felt wrong. The service manager noticed it right away...he said "Hmmm, let me take it back to the service bay and have the guys check it out".
They neglected to remove a fitting/brace (for lack of better words) that is used in shipping, placed somewhere in the springs.
The car literally dropped about 3/4" in the front, now all is well, clearance is "normal", if anything just a tad more in the front, as Tom W mentioned.
Tom, BTW this was reeeally noticeable, from the side, I could literally see a couple full coils of the spring above the front wheel.

All is good , now I'm in love...again.

 

hey, glad to hear that you got it straightened out. Those are the "shipping blocks" or braces that they put in all the springs for the journey from the factory to the dealers - basically to avoid having the shocks take the 24/7 impact while on the seas and transport trucks. Odd that they missed that in the pre-delivery but it is good to know that it wasn't something else that was wrong! Cheers

 

Is this what we have to look forward to from****'* MINI? Good eye and glad you found it. Didn't the handling seem a little unusual set up that way?

 

Removing the shipping blocks is part of the MINI quality delivery checklist. Your MA should have gone over this with you, as you, the customer, has to sign off on the checklist at delivery time.