Wow. Just. Wow.

Someone said "can of worms" but all these worms are pointing the same direction mostly, which is a good thing. Thanks for all the responses.

I do spend a good portion of my commute in traffic, 45+ miles a day. It's slow depending on when I do it, and which route I take.

An automatic is easier in that situation, as you can just let up off the brake, but I was thinking that if I had a manual transmission and a car that was fun to drive, I might take the slower city streets even than sit on the highway creeping at 5 MPH. And just why should I let the worst part of the drive dictate my driving experience????

Driving the manual felt good, and I liked it. It's driving. Yes, I burned out the clutch on the Mustang, but it was such a long throw I tended to ride it to keep from having to bounce my foot around, and I honestly think that contributed to it.

This next week I'm going to drop in at Moritz, as I'm going to be up in FW visiting family over the holidays, and see what they say about early orders. For a six-speed manual. MCS. (the SA dealer is closer, but I'll be selling my car most likely to someone up there and this would make pickup and delivery easy)

I just gotta decide on Dark Silver or Lightning Blue.

And the seats.

And the color line.

And the dash.

And...

-W-

 

every mod was done by me alone or with the help of a friend

if you want to debate what is a true sports car
then all minis are out because they have cup holders and a back seat

 

here is some further info
http://www.gbmini.net/mtblog/archive..._automat.shtml

http://www.gbmini.net/mtblog/archive...e_but_di.shtml

 

Unless you regularly drive in very heavy urban traffic...

Get the manual transmission. It's good and easy enough to lean how to operate.

The automatic on the MCS is also good. A close second in my book.

 

Yeah, get the manual. I live in Philly and drive over forty miles to get to my office, traffic sucks, but it's worth it to have the manuel just for that weekend blast up some back country road. Also it completes one's connection to the car.

 

I used to have a Mustang with the 5 speed. The clutch on that thing was a bear, very heavy pedal effort. My wife could not drive it for very long before it would bother her knee. When we bought the MINI, and auto was not available, but the pedal effort on the clutch was so easy in comparison to the Mustang, it wasn't an issue. I would not be too concerned about driving one in traffic.

 

The clutch on the R56 is really light, not effort at all.

Once you've driven a fast manual car with plenty of torque, you may not want to go back to an auto.

It's fascinating to me (in the UK) that people in the US have to learn to drive manual cars. Very few people here do their driving test in an auto as this would mean their license would only allow them to drive other autos, whereas a manual license allows you to drive both manual and auto transmission cars.

 

This thread has added a chuckle to my morning. I drive my 6-speed MCS both in heavy traffic and on the open road w/o even thinking about it cause manual trannies have always been the way to motor in my family. I bought my Mini from Moritz in Arlington. Neil (Moritz's MA) let me take my time and test drive several configurations w/o a hassle. I didn't much like the automatic and hated the paddles. I felt so uncoordinated and nearly tromped a hole in the floor with my left foot going for a nonexistent clutch. Drat it's hard to teach an old dog new tricks isn't it.

 

The can of worms has been opened, soooo....

I've made my opinion on this pretty clear in past threads - to each his/her own. Personal preference. Different priorities. Different things you use your MINI for and want to get out of it (and put into it). I LOVE my MCS auto, and I LOVE the paddles, and I LOVE all of you. And no, I'm not high.

The one new comment I WILL add is this - the vast majority of pro-manual "experts" who have "tried" the MCS auto and have declared it an inferior power robbing clumsy POS have typically driven a manual for thousands of hours (maybe tens of thousands of hours) and have driven the MCS auto for, oh, let's see, 15 minutes to 4 hours. If it were the other way around - if you had driven nothing but automatics your whole life, then had 15 minutes with a clutch, how would you feel about THAT?

In my personal experience, having driven "sports cars" with manuals, and "sporty cars" with automatics, and lots of other stuff for the last 25 years, the MCS auto took some getting used to before I felt proficient with the paddles. Personally, it took me a month or more with my new MINI before the paddles were second nature and felt just as natural to me as clutching did back in my Triumph...

Would the current MCS auto be a better race car than the manual? No. Will it squeek every last ounce of torque and HP out of the powertrain and put it to the street? No. Can it be VERY fun to drive? Yes, when you get used to it. Can it let you relegate your MINI to completely utilitarian automatic usage when that's what you want it to do? Yep, quite well.

Personal preference. And, unforunately, test driving both for a few minutes doesn't present a real-world sample of what 10 years of daily driving in a car will be like (at least it doesn't for me). If my MINI were a weekend car, manual all the way, baby. But the auto, for me, is good enough for my reasonably high standards of street performance and fun for the 10% of my driving hours that are actually focused on being fun. And the other 90% when I need to point the car in the right direction and get to the destination, I still wear the permagrin, I just don't have to work as hard to have it. Sportdrive rocks. "D" sux hard, except for getting good mileage on the interstate...

 

[quote=BlimeyCabrio;1279436]The can of worms has been opened, soooo....

The one new comment I WILL add is this - the vast majority of pro-manual "experts" who have "tried" the MCS auto and have declared it an inferior power robbing clumsy POS have typically driven a manual for thousands of hours (maybe tens of thousands of hours) and have driven the MCS auto for, oh, let's see, 15 minutes to 4 hours. If it were the other way around - if you had driven nothing but automatics your whole life, then had 15 minutes with a clutch, how would you feel about THAT?

Well Whoop de dooo, the only transmission I hated more than the paddles wuz in an old, 2-ton flat bed truck. Had to double clutch it to avoid grinding the gears. I can't even count high enough to figure out how many hours I've been driving. My mom taught me to drive a "stick shift on the wheel" on the farm many years before I could legally drive. Had to put a pillow under my rear end so's I could see over the wheel. We also had a phone on a party line. Phone wasn't in the car neither.

 

My point exactly.

The paddles are MUCH better than the clutch on the old International tractor I started driving when I was 7.

 

Well, you bested me on that one. I started driving cars at 11. Drove the John Deere, however, before the Chevy.

 

Kids these days don't know what fun they're missing. We didn't need video games - we could REALLY run over stuff...

 

We used to put our "friends" on the running boards and race across the fields seeing how close we could get to the Mesquite trees before they started screaming. Course Mom and Dad never knew this.

 

My other car is a Merc 320 Auto. Great car, auto tranny suits it (and the merc manuals are horrible) just waht I like....sometimes. It has a steptronic function where you can use the gears manually but to be honest I rarely use this.

I'm not saying one is better than the other, just that the difference in the approach to driving between the 2 sides of the pond is interesting (to me anyway).

My experience of flappy paddle gearboxes is not vast nor has it been particularly good, or at least not good enough to make me consider paying extra for it.

 

In the interest of full disclosure, this is a good point. I BETTER like my paddles, cause I sure as heck paid $$$ for them...

I'm definitely not a "disinterested party".

 

I was wondering if anyone knew how much hp the Mini automatic trans. uses? I remember my dad telling me that the old auto trannies would sap like 10-15 hp. Most Mini owners would kill for 10-15 more hp.

I also grew up with manual trannies, my first was a 1969 Renault r-16 4speed on the column. I got it when my friend's dad thought the rust made it unsafe for the road. I was 15 and ran that all over the back hills of my dad's 30 acres. The front end finally rotted out.

 

Hmmmm, I'd almost forgotten the BEST thing about a manual tranny. If the battery were dead, we didn't need jumper cables. We'd push the car to get it rolling and pop the clutch to get it started. Does anyone know if this will still work now that the computer controls the car?

 

It should - once it turns over the engine generates the electricity.

 

Yes it does work.

 

Yes it will. Everything fails "open" so the car will start on a bump start.

 

One of the best reviews of the tranny

Exactly

 

45 miles of heavy traffic................. with a manual trans doesn't sound like very much fun.

I'd try to rent/borrow one for a couple of days commute to see how painful a manual would be.

Good luck whichever way you go
JohnG

 

Well, since no one in this discussion has actually DRIVEN the 07 auto... here's a few words about it from "rayb" on mini2:

"Collected my wife's Cooper auto this morning. I recommend it. The new auto is a coventional 6 speed auto, not a cvt. It also has paddle shifters as well. Very impressed."

That's everything. On the upside, I posted a question on there about the auto and got this response as a private message (with slight editing as the poster wished to remain anonymous: " I have driven one though, 300 miles over a weekend, mixed roads inc hills, twisties and freeways. If you have a current CVT Cooper, you are in for a treat, its just about perfection for such a small power uint, pulls well, chirrups tires even in 2nd if you are enthusiastic, and I averaged 39 miles per gallon. I did 110 mph for one long stretch and was lead footed on the gas quite a bit. All in all its a great improvement on the current boxes."

I'm guessing that considering I'm moving from a Honda Civic to this, I'll be quite pleased. If *I* were the only one ever to drive it, I'd strongly consider a manual just for the cost savings alone, but alas... I will have to be happy with the auto.

 

What sort of RPM's (in sixth gear) for 75 MPH.......... with the auto?

Thanks
JohnG