I agree, but sometimes I find it useful when I forget whether I locked the car after turning a corner in a park structure (no direct line of sight).

 

...or if i want to attract attention to myself... Look! I'm driving a Mini!

it just sucks that we don't have that option.

 

Just found out the other day that the option to have the doors lock after a certain amount of time requires the key to be in the vicinity of the car! At first when I selected the option I thought it would be a timer thing when doors are closed in case I leave and forget to lock the door. I thought it was broken when I came back to the garage to see the doors still unlocked. Kind of useless feature if I need to be next to the car to do this! Oh well.

 

double post sorry!

 

1. When the sun shines directly on the tachometer digital display, the display changes from an LED red to a liquid crystal grey. Most displays wash out in direct sun .. this one becomes very crisp and clear.

2. Driving with the back seats down results in more road noise (a significant difference in my car).

3. If you hold the unlock button on the remote down when approaching your car, the windows go down.

4. When pushing the button to start the car, it's only necessary to hold it momentarily even though the starter continues 'til the engine starts.

 

When your car is locked, pressing the lock button on the remote turns on the interior lights. I suppose this is to see if an intruder is inside your car or to just see inside while keeping the door locked. Maybe this is pretty common but I never noticed it before. I just saw a new Volvo commercial and they have a sensor inside the car that detects someone inside and signals it on your remote as you approach. They call it a heartbeat sensor.

 

And the sunroof opens

 

The speedometer works in reverse.

 

The keys remember the last radio station used. We had two keys last night--we listened to a station on one, switched keys and it remembered my favorite station, switched keys again on the way home, and it remembered the original radio station. Quite a feat if you ask me!

 

I noticed that reverse speedometer thing the other day too - pretty cool!

Here is something I didn't know, and I still don't know...

Sometimes when I get back in the car after having shut it down with the CD player playing it will do different things:

-sometimes it starts the same song again from the beginning of the song
-sometimes it starts at the exact spot where I shut down the car
-sometimes it switches to the radio
-sometimes it switches to the radio and spits out the disc

I can't figure out what or why it does which. Is it the amount of time? The disc I've been playing lately is an MP3 disc, and sometimes it does not want to read some of the albums. I'm not sure if there is a problem with the player, or if its just something funky about the way the disc was written. I have to try another mp3 disc before I declare a problem, but I suspect it is spitting out the disc when for what ever reason it can't read it when I restart.

Does anybody understand the radio's behaviour?

 

I saw this type of behavior in a movie once. I believe the movie was called Evil Dead. I know some people don't believe in that sort of stuff, but who knows

 

Haven't had it spit out cds, but I have not played any MP3 discs in it. The starting from the beginning is kind of annoying. At first I thought it was cool, but when I play Dave Matthews, and the song might be 15 minutes, I never get done with the first track. Sometimes it does pick up where I left off, but for the life of me, I can't figure out the pattern. I thought it might have to do with how long I was out of the car before starting up again, but haven't paid enough attention to see a trend.

 

That's what I was thinking - if you are out of the car for a few minutes it picks up where you left off. Coming back the next morning, it starts the song over.

 

That's cool!

 

So, what's the fastest speed anyone has gone in reverse??

 

I saw 5 here.

 

This has blown the minds of many in my MINI:

For those that do not have auto-dimming rearview mirrors, the next time you are on the road at night and the lights of the cars in back of you are glaring, just twist the **** underneath the rearview mirror. Somehow, the mirror flips up to the right, but you can still see out the back at exactly the same angle, but without the glare! Then you can twist it back to the left. I still cannot figure out how it works! Hard to describe, but you will know what I mean when you try it for yourself.

 

Is this the first car you've had with a rearview mirror?

All cars have this feature - most have you flip a lever though.

 

I test drove an 07 today and it didn't have the storage in the dash, it was sealed. I hope that when I order one that I'll be able to get one that opens, I would like the extra space.

 

What exactly would be the correct response to this? I had to read it a couple of times to see if you were kidding.

 

And by implication it seems all the people they showed it to had never seen it before either....

Did you show them the reverse gear? Did you know about that?

BTW, I apparently hold the Mini Reverse Gear speed record for the time being.

 

Lava, just to beat you , unsafely, I went 18!!!! mph haha staright back.....mhmmm...thank goodness no one was there.

 

I can see it now--the '07s have an "issue" with reverse gears unaccountably failing...

 

All the cars that I've had in the past do not have this feature, so when I listed this as something new about my MINI, I didn't expect to get slammed. Thanks MINI community!

 

Don't take it personal, you know the MINI community has its + and - .