First off, look at your NAM calender and see the MINI Cooper S was launched on June 8, (I don't have the calender near me).
I looked at my e-mail from AutoWeek and see an article about the new S.

 

Not a very good review. I think the concerns listed are definitely reasonable. I just think the reviewer is far more interested in psycho-analyzing the car design process than he is in really talking about the car. The telling passage is his last paragraph ("but why?") which basically spells out that he is really only interested in making a clever point and not about dealing with specific improvements.

I think it's natural. I work in video games where we see very similar stuff. Video game reviewers like to be sensational. An article needs drama and excitement. It needs to tell a story. Or so a lot of them think. And towards that end, you get a lot of crazy reviews that end up with a poignant conclusion and never, well, get around to telling you whether the game is any better or worse than any of the other ones out there. And you also get a lot of nitpicking because, "yeah, it's pretty good", is boring.

When the MINI was new, it was sensational in and of itself because of its newness. It's no longer new though and so reviewers have to go farther to say something exciting! and clever! With gigantic paragraphs detailing how the wiper controls aren't the reviewers ideal choice and are "too cute by half" with sandwiching the the barest mentions of caveats ("Such judgments are subjective, of course") which, while very important, get completely ignored by the time the review gets to its conclusions and Big Clever Point.

"Boutique?" What? Who cares? Wind shield wiper controls? Radio *****? Seriously, are those an issue for anyone after day 1?

But you know, a review like that WILL generate more interest than a boring review that just nails the facts. So whatever. :-)

 

Wow ... throwing fuel on the fire between sibling rivarly.

I also find it interesting ... if you don't agree with a review, find a way to dismiss it. Clearly BMW made a business decision.

 

The guy should be fired IMO. That's an embarrasing "article". A car review was it? Did he drive it? Or just sit in it and play with the radio and work the wipers.

 

Not sure if that was directed at me? But "dismiss"?

Let me put it this way. The guy's only criticisms of the thing are that the windshield wipers and radio controls aren't obvious the first time you sit in the car and that there is no supercharger whine (though in an aside he grudingly admits that there is more power). Furthermore, in between rants about the ergonomics of one **** or other he throws out that these are just subjective. It's not clear that there's, well, anything to dismiss he's not really saying much of anything. Which is the problem with the review.

 

That and the fact that he didn't comment on how the car drives, handles, brakes. Nothing about the seats. Little details like that belong in a car review IMO.

 

The AW review summarizes my own impressions quite well.

I also asked "Why?"...

 

STGabriel ,
I agree with you 100%, keep giving us your opinion it was one of the most well thought out post I've read in a long time .In fact I have nothing to add.

 

More of the same old complaints. I've grown to like the wiper switch, and turn signals. Since I have Nav, the radio complaints don't apply to my experience. You can tell that the writer did not drive the S, as he fails to mention Torque Steer, which is really my only major complaint with my S.

 

Not much of a review. I think I will keep my R56.

 

It seems to me that he just doesn't like the so-called BMWization of the car. That's cool. I do happen to like it!

 

No, not pointed at you

When the MINI first came out, there were a lot of good reviews. Now 5 years later, new design, some reality is setting in to the reviews. Clearly BMW has made a business decision to make the car less raw. No more fake burble.

Some ppl dont like that. Althought the enthusiasts dont care, some ppl do care that, as the author pointed out, ergonomics are important. The holistic view of the entire car makes it what is is. It looks like Ryephile is selling his R56 because he prefers the rawness of first gen. A recent motoringfile article pointed out the more refinement in the R56.

As the car evolves, the masses dont care about the performance when you got to live with the entire car (and so I'm guess one reason the fake burble went away)

So now there are a bunch of reviews that some ppl do not like because its not what they want to read and hence ... dismissed (this is in general, just read the other threads where the R56 comes in 4th or 5th in comparisons.

It appears the journalists are no longer enamored with merely perfomrance and now the entire car is looked at more closely. That was my point. But I guess its human nature. you dont like what a journalist writes because it doesnt agree with a persons views, there is nothing wrong with that. But I see it happening more and more lately and hence my comment on fuel on the fire for the siblings.

 

Most of his criticism is nit-picking - it's actually a pretty damn good review. Now I'm awaiting my car's delivery even more anxiously...

 

Would you please stop making sense - you're ruining the party!

 

If I wanted a Honda, I would go and buy one. Oh, I already have one. Great dependable car but not very fun or interesting to drive and gets you to point A to B. A bus would do this too but would take longer.

 

Its the girly car thing The left side of my brain is kicking in.

Hey, where can I can buy that fridge? I like those go fast stripes!!!

I hate to see this sibling rivarly thing but hey ... why look at the entire car that you have to live in ... and oh no ... those journalists keep talking about ergonomics ... the horror!!! Why are they not talking about cracking the ECU???

Heh... silly reviews...

Now ask yourself this question. Why do these reviews keep bringing those silly ergonomics?

 

It wasn't personal. I didn't say I took offense to it or "disliked it". I even said the complaints he made were reasonable. I just said that for a review it was way was way too short on actual content about the car. Without loss of any meaningful content the entire review can be condensed into one sentence:

"I don't like the radio controls or the windshield wipers and, you know what, I'm nostalgic for supercharger whine and that means more to me than actual performance."

But a review like that isn't that interesting so it got manhandled into a Big Point. The kind of Big Point that can get people righteously indignant such that it doesn't really matter if it is justified by three opinions or not.

 

I hear it takes about 18 months for the effect of the chili red to go away. Give it another 4 or 5 months and then see a doctor.

Silly Chows, that's not a fridge it's the rumored 08 freshening of the R56.

The power plant in the R56 is a gem. It should respond to mods well. As to the ergomnomics - well, what do Autoweek, Car and Driver, Road and Track, etc. know? It's not like they absolutely love everything BMW - um...never mind.

The R50/53 had it's share of ergonomic quirks. Some have been addressed, some have been ignored and new ones have been created. I still think that addressing the ergonomic and functional issues but keeping the mechanical rawness would have been a winning formula - but what the hell do I know?

 

Um... will there be an Aero Kit for that?

 

StGabriel, I was ranting a bit about the "general" trend I see here lately ... nothing about what you said. I actually agree the review was a bit focused.

Lately, there are a bunch of car reviews. The R56 did NOT rank #1 Some ppl dont like that and they bash the review and think ... hey, what does ... (you fill in the blank) magazine know. Same thing with Consumer Reports, JD Power or whatever. The MINI (or BMW) doesn't rank high ... well what do they know. Its not what they want to hear.

I think a lot of enthusiasts keep forgetting that MINI has to sell the car to the masses who simply could care less about burble or 0 - 60 times but do care about ergonomics. If you need to change a station ... it would be nice if they were ergonomically friendly.

But I do agree with you, that review was focused on one aspect, an aspect that the performance junkies don't want to read about because they simply do not care about that kind of stuff. Nothing wrong with that, just a different perspective.

I'm not sure that would sell anymore. It would sell to the enthusiasts but not to the other 80% of the ppl who dont care about performance. The unheard masses Clearly BMW made a business decision to eliminate the fake burble.

I dunno. I would just hope that they get the reliability a lot better and I still may consider a convertable for about town (and then I can get my car back from the wife)

 

Now the MINI is really going to be appliance like.

 

The real take away here is that the R56 is not resonating well with the press. It's not that the R56 didn't rank #1, it's the bottom of the heap finish that is the real message for BMW to take away... finishing 4th of 5, besting only the Nissan Sentra.... all I can say is WOW! This combined with the number of R56 vechicles sitting in dealers inventory... spells trouble for our beloved MINI.

BTW, that Autoweek article is dead-on... but they missed the fake hood scoop rant...

 

In this case, though, I think it's clear that the article does merit dismissal. It is three opinions about minor aspects of the car packaged in a bunch of sensationalism. He isn't talking about how "raw" the ride is. He isn't even really talking about ergonomics that are very important. The radio dial? The wind shield wipers? Changing either of those becomes an automatic/mindless action within a week of owning a car.

And how on earth is wanting a supercharger whine a mainstream concern?

I think you're getting multiple arguments confused here. On the one hand you're saying that performance people are being left out by BMW. On the other hand the new MINI performs better. Secondly, you are saying that ergonomics like radio buttons are a mainstream concern. I don't think they are. I think that multiple paragraphs written about a radio dial are the work of an enthusiast with a lot invested in the MINI ideal of the past generation.

For what it's worth, I'm not actually that performance-minded and I'm not much of an enthusiast compared to most people on here. So I'm pretty much exactly the audience you think he's targetting. Metrics that I care most about are MPG, handling, ride, value, access to a few options and a unique and inspiring look. On my list of things I don't care about: what sound my car's engine makes and whether the radio dial and windshield wipers are immediately intuitive.

A good review is a person with something to say to a given audience. If he's targetting a mainstream audience then there are a bunch of things he needs to say and doesn't. In fact, the lack of a "raw" ride is exactly one of these things. If he's talking to a performance crowd then there are is is another bunch of relevant things to talk about there too and he's not interested in any of that either.

And that's why I'm saying that it's not just that people need to validate their decisions and need to "dismiss" reviews. You've got to admit that it's also about journalists trying to make articles that sound more exciting than they are. Furthermore it's a matter of the MINI not being new and shiny anymore as well as a certain amount of nostalgia and expectations. People got used to a MINI that felt and sounded one way and they don't want to let go of that and have to validate their own opinions that the new MINI is somehow "wrong". I'll agree with you that BMW has made some business decisions and changes. I'm not sure I agree with you on any of the how's or why's though.

 

Also, you've got to admit that it's a two-way street. For every r56 fan desperate to dismiss a review there is an older MINI fan clinging to something like "radio dial ergonomics" as a reason to dismiss any envy they might feel for improvements in the newer version.

And look at threads about the '08 changes. I'll admit it: I'd rather have an '08 than an '07. But oh well. Meanwhile, there has been a lot of silly dismissal of all the news on that front from r56 owners because no one wants to feel bad that they no longer have the latest and greatest.

 

Let's see if you are correct. If this community has resevations about the new generation, then why not the unwashed masses?