Mufflethis,
My R56 stick doesn't sound anything like that. I think I'd ask the MINI reps to walk down the line at the showroom and show me any other MINI that makes that sound. If it's normal, they should have no problem randomly proving it.

 

Yeah I know, a friend of mine owns an MCS his mom owns a manual MC, I test drove a couple of them, none of them made that noise. I told them that I wouldn't have bought a car where that noise was something that was considered normal. But they won't budge. The most annoying part is that they made the noise worse after "fixing" it. So apparently it was broken enough for them to try to fix it, but when they make it worse it's somehow normal.

 

Two more attempts and it Lemon Law territory. No judge would hear that and say it was normal, especially if you taped a sample off the lot during discovery.

 

I had a month left on my VW GLI lease when I went to test drive a clubman and cooper s. Clubman had a 10 week waiting period which would have left me without a car for a 6 weeks. However, they had a cooper s with all the features that I wanted. Also, the clubman was almost $8K more for an extra 3 inches of leg room. I dropped off my VW down the street and drove a pepper white cooper s home that day. It's been great and I don't regret it. I'll be getting a bill from VW for the last monthly payment. Happy birthday to me!

 

I caught the MCS fever too! For years my grandma taunted her 9 Grandkids, "Graduate from College with a B+ Average and I'll buy you an MC". Two months from yesterday I graduate with well above a B+ average and she's said we could go look at mini's when she comes up! She told me that two weeks ago and it's become this obsession ever since. It feels like it's been years. I don't know if I could last 8 months! 2 seems hard enough!!!!

 

Congrats on graduating!

 

Thanks! Although I live in the Pacific NW and this mysterious glowing orb started to appear in the sky over this last weekend...I'm hoping it doesn't produce onslaughts of "senioritis"....