Let me just tell everyone, this is a personal opinion review that is meant to help any FUTURE buyers give my opinion about my Clubman S.


Comfort Bluetooth system - My phone, Blackberry Tour - Needs a lot of work. having to load and program EVERY contact for Voice Recognition is extremely cumbersome and a lack of programming and thinking on BMW's part. Cannot even use the phones capabilities for voice recognition. other than this, the connection and phonebook work just fine, but loading my contacts into the MINI does NO good when the voice recognition doesn't even know they are there.

I hate to say this, the Ford Sync system by Microsoft is THE BEST in the business. Hands down!

Seats - My Seats, Carbon Lounge Leather. Love the seat, it fits me well. YES, it's a little hard, but nice. 1 issue, I have to take my wallet out of my back pocket or it digs into my rear. Heated Seats work great, they get hot fast. BTW, i am 6'5", 220

Harmon Kardon Sound System - Sound is VERY good, much better than HiFi and Standard system. I like that each input has it's own bass and trebble controls. MID range would have been nice but not that much of an issue. Ipod works seamlessly.

ONE issue is the scrolling through artists and songs, if MINI would have set up the same system as the Bluetooth with the alpabet to scroll to a letter then drill down to an artist, this would make it SOOO much easier. Maybe a future upgrade.

Qualty of the car - Everything seems to be up to par for the price of the vehicle, no rattles, no issues to date.

Quirkyness of the controls - this seems to be an issue for some, for me, I spent plenty of time thinking and testing the car before buying so I knew what I was getting into. The LARGE speedo...i love it and so does everyone who gets in the car. Window switches in front of cup holders...big deal QUIT SUPERSIZING!! It just takes some time to get used to it.

Automatic Transmission - Really like the transmission, smooth and very responsive. Yes, the car has a JERK or lunge forward when you stop at a light. It's a little anoying, but I can get over it.

Child Seat- I have a 2 year old, she LOVES the car and calls it "Daddy's MINI" it is easier to get her in and out with the club door than it was in our S80 Volvo.

Run Flats - Took them off

Overall Summary -
Dislikes -
Bluetooth System
Scrolling through Ipod Songs/Artists
My wallet in my pocket.
No one touch OPEN sunroof (will have to buy KPTECH module)
No memory power seats
Massive Brake Dust
Getting to my destination!

Likes -
Harmon Kardon
Good Fuel Mileage
Comfort Access System
Handling
Power
Fun to Drive
Everyone stares at your car
Driving to my Destination!


Overall, I am very happy with the purchase and am very happy with FLOW MINI in Winston Salem NC. They went above and beyond through the entire process.

I look forward to a long trouble free MINI.

 

If you get the nav, voice recognition works right out of the box without programming anything. I've used it with both an iPhone 3GS and Sony Ericsson W810i.

 

and in a NAV car my blackberry curve voice dialed with out problems.

The voice dial system on the NON NAV cars is very poor and why BMW/MINI programed it this way who knows and whay they will not change it is also a mystery

 

Both Bluetooth and some parts of iPod navigation (i.e. no "songs" menu) suffer in non-Nav cars, for whatever reason.

 

2000.00 for the MINI nav is just rediculous. Believe me, I spent time with the system to see if I wanted to order it. When it was all said and done, a portable Garmin is the best value for features, upgradeability and ease of use.
BMW needs to re work the bluetooth system in these cars that do not have the NAV.
This week I rented a 2010 Ford Taurus Limited with the SYNC system, NO NAV and the entire SYNC system blows them all away!! Less than 1 minute and I was paired and using the voice system. NEVER pulled the manual out or had to go to a forum for help. I got in, paired and started driving to Atlanta. It was just that simple.

Don't get me wrong I love the MINI and am working around the bluetooth issue. I just want those to know who have NOT purchased what the system will do and NOT do. Obviously before ordering the car I did read that the NON NAV system does VOICE RECOGNITION, I was cool with that, i just didn't realize it takes having to RECOGNIZE MY voice, over and over and over and over again.

LOVE THE CAR!!! Can't get enough of it!!

 

What he said +1.

 

You can do some searching over in the Nav/Radio forum, but an easy fix for the iPod scrolling issue is to use the "genre" in iTunes. If you re-tag your songs by artist with the first letter of their last name as the genre, you can find any artist easily and quickly. I've got a big iTunes library (10K+ songs) and it works great for me.

 

I agree, get the Garmin. I have the OEM Nav and I never use it because of it's functionality.