Finally got around to pulling the trigger on the order for my wife's car today, drove out to MoA (82 miles each way) and was treated royally; great folks out there, highly recommended, much nicer than that other dealership I tried first.

Since it's my wife's car, and she could care less about being fast, we ordered a base Cooper, fairly lightly equipped but I'd like to thank people on the NAM forum for some great suggestions, namely white turn signals, and the rear fog light, not a make or break thing but I would not have thought to order them had I not been on this forum.

So the details:

Oxygen Blue w/White roof/mirrors
Cold Weather Package
Front and Rear Fogs
Multi-Function Steering Wheel*
Rotator Spoke Wheels
Brushed Alloy Interior Trim
Rear Lip Spoiler

*One thing I found out when I talked to the MA was if you don't get the multi-function wheel, you DON'T GET CRUISE CONTROL AT ALL. That was a big surprise so I wound up including that.

I normally don't use cruise all that much, but I don't have it on my Mazdaspeed Miata but there are a few times on medium trips where I wished the MSM did have cruise control.

There are also some dealer installed accessories I plan on getting, but the MA needs to get me some details on those later on, I want to take the invisishield all the way up the hood if possible and get some install prices on some of the other bits.

I believe they said I would be scheduled for week 32 production, the MA and the finance guy that double checked the order told me it should be delivered by Mid-October which is sooner than I had figured.

Overall a very interesting buying experience, even though paying MSRP (well I will be getting free floor mats) was a huge mental adjustment on my part. Being able to order the car exactly the way we wanted it was really cool, my dad did this once years ago (bought an AMC Matador Wagon with positraction and dual exhaust ) and my mom factory ordered a car once, but I never have before.

FWIW even with the dealer accessories added later on our car will be less than $22k, whereas the used base Coopers we had looked at had a bunch of options we could care less about (for example I own a 'vert, and another car with a sunroof, my wife could care less about either so we didn't want a sunroof on the MINI) and were usually $2k - $3k more for a USED CAR.

Anyway a great day for me and my son (he rode over in the Mazdaspeed with me to the dealer), total time driving over, working with the MA, buying a T-Shirt, stopping for lunch and driving back home (165 mile round trip) was 5 hours, by far the least amount of time I have ever spent buying a car.

Happy to officially join the sickness, now just waiting for October for the car to arrive!

Analogeezer

 

Congrats on the purchase. Buying at MSRP is an adjustment but unlike other cars the minute you drive off the lot the car doesn't lose 30% of its value.

 

i love oxygen blue congrats!

 

Hey, congrats! Just ordered mine yesterday and kept it pretty MINImal too! So did you get an 08 or 09?

 

Congrats!

I don't think he's right on it being a Week 32...mine's a Week 32 and it's on the boat and almost hit stateside!

 

Yeah, I'm guessing a 09 then, I"m awaiting my production week but I think it will be past 36.

 

Week 32 of 2008 is nearly finished, could be that MINI added week 32.5 or something to try and catch up with demand.

 

Congrats to you too!

We ordered a 2009, I figure at this point it made a lot more sense. Yeah the price went up some but the DSC is now standard so at least you get more than just a higher price.

Analogeezer

 

Maybe I heard what I wanted to hear

I wasn't paying that much attention to that, I figured until my build number gets into production I won't get to worked up about it, he might have said "Week 36" but somehow 32 stuck in my mind.

I had figured on 10 weeks to delivery and they said 8 so if that works out that will be great, I don't mind the wait as I usually take six months anyway between deciding to buy a car and actually buying it.

We've been "thinking" about buying a MINI for about two years now though, so actually ordering the car is a pretty huge step, so the wait is not that big of a deal for me at this point...well until we get close

Analogeezer

 

Analogeezer congrats on placing the order for the MC

 

I also found out if you dont order fogs, they give you running lights, which i like better congrats

 

Wecome aboard. Now the real waiting starts!

 

The excitement of buying a new MINI is so fun ! I wish I could buy another one !

 

Nice car....very similar to mine, actually!!!