Hello,

Love my 2008 Mini Cooper S hardtop R56 with standard equipment - including ASC and ABS controls only (no DSC, no Cruise Control). Fantastic and fun to drive now that I've had it for two weeks.

It did an odd thing going down a steep winding four lane highway. In standard D (not manual shift mode) the car automagically downshifted to maintain a constant speed. The speed was not as fast as I wanted so it upshifted on my acceleration and my R56 downshifted on its own when I took my foot off the gas. I can find no reference to "Descent Control" related to this standard model. No reference to ASC (or DSC for that matter) automatically downshifting for descent control. This did happen, I was not dreaming at the time.

Has anyone experienced this? Why does this happen? Is there a name for this functionality?

Thanks,
Steve