Our new Roadster is finally tucked away in our garage!

We took delivery a few hours ago. Everything at MINI of St. Louis went very smoothly. Our MA Karen and the rest of the team there really made it a great experience.

We basically just drove it home, so not a lot of first impressions.

I enjoyed driving it, but need some daylight, and a chance to get everything adjusted to take it out and really see how it feels. Also trying to stay within the break-in period limits makes it hard to really get a good feel for the acceleration and braking.

Even with windows up and windscreen in place, my ears were getting a bit cold on the highway (~49 degrees F). Conversation was quite practical under those conditions though. And the heated seats work great as they have in our previous MINIs - another area where the MINI is a great contrast to our utilitarian (work) Prius.

The car looks great and I'm really anxious to get it out in the sun and really take a good look at it, and get some serious pictures. They're predicting rain for us tomorrow, so it might be Wednesday before that happens. It will give me time to play with MINI Connected, get the phones paired up and so on.

My 370Z was a great car, but it felt so right to be back in the MINI fold again!

(a few more weak photos attached - need daylight to get some really decent shots)

Don

 

Looks Great!

Congrats Don!

Looking forward to your future posts and pics.

 

Congrats on the new kid! Sorry about the rain.

 

Looks great! Ive always heard you should break it in like your going to drive it. I have always tried to be nice for the first 500-1000 miles but never could last. Take some nice shots when you can. Good Luck!

 

Nice...looking for to hearing/seeing more soon

 

Looking great man!! That's the exact setup my wife wanted me to get...it's sweet!!

 

Congrats, Don! Looking good - those are the seats that I would be going with as well.

Looking forward to your full review once you've had some time with it.

 

Thanks for the comments all!

It's not raining so I took some better pictures. It is however overcast, so the sunny lighting that would make things "pop" isn't there. But at least it's fairly even lighting and I used my dSLR.

First mods have been made - shorter antenna and rear license plate frame!

Photo album is here:
http://islanddon.smugmug.com/Cars/MI...1675402_L8wXnD

Don

 

That Chili with black (beans) stripes is popping and hot, YUM.

 

You like my word "pop". Looks great. Just curious why you didnt go with Black headlights? For my info.

 

I wanted the adaptive headlights, which weren't available with the black headlights. I'm a gadget guy.

Don

 

Thanks! I'm really happy with how the wheels and the black stripe contrast with the red. I'm not a zero-chrome guy, but we did go with minimal chrome on this car and I'm liking the look so far!

Don

 

Good looking Roadster, Don.

Thanks for the wonderful pictures. I'm going crazy waiting for my JCW. Let us know how you like the vehicle as you get some time on the road.

 

Oh! OK. Thats the reason I asked. But could you get the white turns with those? I guess I should read into this more?

 

Thanks. I understand the going crazy part! I'm looking forward to driving it.

My first challenge is figuring out the correct tire pressure. Dealer delivered it at ~32psi. Door sticker and manual say 41psi. Mentioned it to my MA and the response she relayed from ? said that 41 is maximum and they recommend 32-35.

Roughly 25% lower than door sticker seems awfully low to me... I set it to 39psi and will see how it feels.

Don

 

I'll bet the dealer is wrong.

I have a Countryman with 17" run flats, they are set to 32 psi and the door sticker says 32 psi.

I am wondering if they changed something with the tires on the new Roadster and the dealer just set them to 32 because that was the setting used for almost all the other minis.

Personally I would believe the door sticker and the manual as those are not maximum values but recommended values from the manufacturer.

 

Yes, you can (and I did) get the white turns.

Don

 

Really nice looking car there. Take a shot with the top up too. If the doorjamb says 41psi that should be right, but that's a pretty high pressure. What kind of tires are they?

 

Yeah, that's my bet also. Running a few pounds under/over the recommended pressure to tune for comfort/handling - sure. But this is pretty far from that IMHO.

This is the highest pressure I've ever seen on any of my vehicles though.

Just took a quick spin with 39psi. Rode a bit rougher of course. Not excessive but rougher. Need more time to really tell though.

BigNewt - the tires are:
Continental ContiProContact SSR
205/45R17 84V

We get some sun and I plan to take more pics - I'll get some top-up ones in that batch for sure.

Don

 

Don, I just checked Tirerack on the Conti's and they are showing 51lbs. as the recommended pressure. I was curious as well. Perhaps this is the new breed of low resistance/fuel efficient tires?

-Steven

 

Your roadster looks great Don! Did you get the sport suspension?

 

Thanks!

I did not get the Sport Suspension. Intent was to have the JCW Suspension installed at delivery - that was thwarted by it not being available for this car yet.

Frustrating when you want to give MINI and the dealer more money and they don't want it.

Current plan is to drive the car for a bit and either A) let the JCW suspension become available, or B) do some aftermarket suspension mods.

Don

 

Looks like some other tires have that same 51psi max. Don't know if this is something new or not. It is different anyway.

Don

 

What antenna did you get? It looks good :-)

 

Nothing fancy, just ordered the one that MINI sells from Morristown. It does look better than the "whip" antenna the car came with!

Don