Once you go from CD to mp3 (assuming you do it), you'll never go back. A smartphone and a $10/month streaming subscription gets you access to everything, and it's much more convenient than CD's. It's probably been close to ten years since I've played a CD.

Also, I rarely use the radio because I've got podcasts to listen to.

Technology is good.

 

My wife is looking at a new All4 Clubman, please tell me they don't have the engine issues the 08's to 10's have. My daughter's 08 Clubman just Grenaded her engine due to the timing chain issue..

 

Completely different engine. A bmw design that so far seems solid.

 

Question for you new Clubman types... I was driving behind a new Clubman yesterday and I noticed the brake lights consisted of the lights on the bumper and the high mounted brake light. The lights on the barn doors didn't come on except as a turn signal. Was something wrong with this car or is that how they work. Looks very odd to have those huge taillights that don't do anything when braking.

 

That is how they work. I agree, very odd.

 

Certain countries,states, etc don't allow brake lights on moving doors. It's a safety thing. Having followed a Clubman on a test drive I found it distracting.

 

I've already had someone completely miss them and almost rear end me in a lifted Dodge pickup while I was in our loaner. All I heard was a screech and a grill filling the barn door windows. There is also a complaint on the NHTSA website about them already.

When we get our Clubby back from repairs I'm going to add a pulsing 3rd brake light and if that doesn't work I'm adding this decal to the back of ours:




I bet $10 bucks that MINI will have to fix the brake lights on a recall before we sell this car in 4 years.

 

I wouldn't bet against it. The eye is drawn to the huge lights on the doors. Probably a simple fix to have both sets of lights go on, someone should design an aftermarket module to do that, or a simple wiring fix.

 

The Audi Q SUV's have the same design except they actually designed it correctly. The large lights on the hatch are normally the rear brake lights and the lowers are the running lights if the hatch is closed. If hatch is open then the lower lights become the brake lights since the ones on hatch are hidden.

Hopefully this is or as you mentioned both can be lighted easily through a mod. We love the Clubman for everything else but I am seriously worried about my wife getting rear ended with my daughter. If I had noticed this before we bought I would have been a little more apprehensive.

 

Wow! I was not aware of that at all!! And I take delivery next week. Who Looks at the brake lights on a car you are test driving! Of COURSE EVERYONE would asume those huge lights on the doors are brake lights!! Talk about your patently stupid design there. So that explains why the brake lights in the earlier clubbies are attached to the body frame, and doors have openings that go around them.

 

Someone on another forum recommended installing this. I've got one on the way for whenever I eventually get my new Clubman back after the repairs.

http://www.outmotoring.com/mini-coop...ht_pulsar.html

 

Yes I did too, it's like subconsciously you know it's stopping but at the same time the lights that should be coming on aren't so you don't know if it's really braking. It's really weird, until you've driven behind one you don't realize how strange it is.

 

Just so everyone doesn't think a few of us are crazy when discussing these brake lights here's a quick scenario.

Here is a picture from the driver seat of my Jeep Wrangler. It has just a leveling kit that may amount to a 1" lift, so it rides at normal truck or SUV height. This picture is taken at 2 car lengths from the Clubman with the brake lights on:




So moving a bit closer this is the view from the drivers seat. Now imagine a lifted vehicle trying to see in an instant that the driver in front is braking:



So how far from the MINI was I when I could no longer see the brake lights? Anybody ever pull up closer than this or have someone closer than this during their normal drive?

 

Got our new Clubman (S manual) a couple weeks ago. Will likely be my wife's primary vehicle. She's loving it so far. One thing I am really impressed with is the gas mileage. Assuming that the data generated by the car is accurate, she just took an 800-mile trip from Madison to Ann Arbor and back and averaged 36.6 mpg. This is even better than we've been getting with our 2013 S Clubman. And it's a lot better than the 19 mpg we got on the highway with our Mazda CX-9.

 

And your Clubman is in the shade so the lights look brighter, out in the sun just that high mounted brake light is nearly invisible. Hope a fix is forthcoming.

 

Very Good Point(s) and Photos to demonstrate, I just had my wife go out with me in the garage to confirm. I always suspected those too were the Brake Lights, and the below were just my rear fogs

I then went to check the NHTSA website to see if it had been reported and did't find that it had. One can report it there and have pictures and our diagrams to submit. Not sure if that is something you're interested in, but your pictures are a really good example.

Additionally, I have had twice were trucks came up on me rather abruptly barely stopping shy of hitting me. I just thought at the time "jerks", but now this has me wondering if it were not because of this...

 

It's happened to us in both cars but this blazing red loaner is the worst. I can only think as what Benibiker said in the sunlight the red on red is invisible. Right now my wife is driving my Jeep until we get our Pepper White back from the dealer.

I did fill out and send a notice to the NHTSA.gov website tonight with an explanation and pics. This has nothing to do with us not liking our MINI Clubman, we both love it, we just want our family to be safe in it.

Here is the link showing the other complaints (not mine), there isn't an actual Clubman section on their site. Just click on the complaints tab.

http://www-odi.nhtsa.dot.gov/owners/...od_ids=1994098

 

I agree! We absolutely love the car and not getting rid of it! They (MINI) could probably easily fix this with software and or rewire?

I guess we'll wait and see. Hope you get yours back soon. I already have 1900 miles on mine in two weeks.

Thanks.

 

Could these guys come up with a fix? http://www.codemycar.com. I'm going to message them now.

 

Regarding the bumper-mounted brake lights, which I agree should have been implemented as redundant/conditional lights like an Audi Q5, cursory searching suggests the lower height regulation is 15 inches, and it looks like our Clubmans comply with that.

 

I am supposed to pick up my clubman this week but this break light thing has me considering walking away from the deal. This seems completely unacceptable to me.

 

I can't imagine them not fixing this, although it would just be when. I would hate to see someone lose out on a great car, because of this

It is such a wonderful car, we do love everything else about it!

 

I agree. Other than this issue we love the Clubman. My wife can't wait to drive hers and even does the car guy thing of taking the long way home to enjoy her drive more. First vehicle she's ever done that in.

I also found this video on youtube showing the european crash tests. Wish they had done a rear but the rest look very good. Worst case is if we get rear ended they will end up suing MINI hopefully.

 

So I got curious to see if there is an easy mod we can do that would fix the brake light issue. This is where I wish I was an electrical instead of mechanical engineer

Opening the rear hatch there is a small rubber piece that covers the bulbs for running and turn signal lights. It appears the reverse light you would actually have to remove the rear panel to get to the bulb.



Opening the cover you get a single snap in plastic bulb holder that has three wires running into a single plug connector in the bottom. It appears to be a 4 wire plug with only 3 wires installed. This is the non-led model I currently have, maybe someone with LED's can see if all 4 wires are used.



Snapping the connector out you have an upper and lower running light along with the center turn signal bulb. So unless you can repurpose one of those smaller bulbs to the brake line and be able to go to a higher brightness bulb I don't see an easy way to do brakes here.

 

It would require a different bulb fixture and connector that handled dual filament bulbs with one filament the brake and the other signal. And I'm hesitant to install the flasher module on the center third brake light because a failure of the module would cause no visible brake light and could void a warranty fix or even an insurance claim.