MINI Cooper!!

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Well we did it, bought a new MINI Cooper that is. This is a car for the wife and we have been looking and researching for a long time. I thought that she was going to go with the diesel Jetta but she surprised me and went with the MINI!
We were thinking about the S model with the turbo but ended up with the base model with the Getrag 6-speed stick and a sunroof. Less power but still handles great for a little less coin.
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The MINI comes with 3 year service but the first scheduled OC is 15000 miles or one year whichever comes first. I do believe that I will change it myself before then!

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The Mini has some Chrysler parts and I have seen one with the Chrysler 2.0 engine with the Mini valve cover on it
 
Originally Posted By: rszappa1
Seems like all of the quality reports on the car are not very good....
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Party pooper. Nice car!
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Originally Posted By: rszappa1
Seems like all of the quality reports on the car are not very good....


There is envy for you... no class at all.

Glad you are excited with your purchase. Even if there are a few problems you will still have a great time with it, I know several people who are still very happy after a couple of years of ownership.

Definately a neat car!
 
I knew going in that this was not the most reliable car for the money. If that was the most important criteria then I would have bought another Civic or Corolla.
This woman bore my three children and is the greatest mother and wife that I could have ever asked for. She has had her fill of minivans, SUV's and wanted a MINI and by gosh, that's what she got. I am willing to pay for the extra service and repairs... she deserves it.
 
NEW YORK (AP) — For Mini, the maker of sporty — if sometimes eccentric — pint-sized hatchbacks, landing at the bottom of another closely watched vehicle quality study this week is almost a point of pride.

Mini says it deliberately engineers quirks into its cars, like oddly placed dashboard controls or unusual interior lighting, that drag down its ratings in such studies. But Jim McDowell, vice president of Mini's U.S. operations, said those design features are central to the brand's personality.

"Mini has some idiosyncrasies that we engineer into our cars," said Jim McDowell, vice president of Mini's U.S. operations. "We want to make our cars remarkable little cars."

If that sounds like spin, consider that Mini has been among a handful of beneficiaries in the crisis rocking the auto industry. The carmaker owned by Germany's BMW AG has seen sales fall over the last year but has snapped up market share from its bigger rivals. On Monday, it announced plans to open 17 new dealerships across the country, bringing its U.S. total to 100, while Detroit automakers are shuttering locations.

Still, Mini has been dogged by par to sub-par performance in recent quality studies. On Monday, the automaker finished dead last in J.D. Power & Associates' annual initial quality study. The marketing and consulting company ranked 37 nameplates based on car buyers' responses about their first 90 days of ownership. Toyota's Lexus brand placed first.

In the same study last year, Mini was second from the bottom, followed only by Chrysler's Jeep brand, and it came in below average in J.D. Power's study of long-term reliability this year. However, Consumer Reports placed Mini's vehicles slightly above the middle of the pack in its annual reliability survey published in April.

Dave Sargent, J.D. Power's vice president of automotive research, said the firm does not reveal the problems owners reported with individual brands or cars. However, the top five problems reported in the overall study were wind noise, air conditioner or heater control problems, interior scuffing, audio control problems and brake noise.

In other words, the problems that many car owners are reporting these days are relatively minor and often concern oddities that perturb drivers rather than fundamental defects with the performance of the car.

"The term 'low quality' or 'lowest in quality' is like saying the poorest person living in Beverly Hills," said Karl Brauer, editor in chief of the auto Web site Edmunds.com. "I think the differences in the best and worst cars are, in the real-world experiences of most customers, almost imperceptible."

McDowell attributed Mini's poor performance in J.D. Power's most recent study to design quirks like the windshield wiper control. In the Mini, it's a button that presses rather than a knob that turns. Its cars feature adjustable ambient light colors — not an option you're likely to find in your standard Dodge Ram pickup.

Sargent said frustration with unusual parts or features is common when vehicles like the Mini are designed and produced overseas for foreign tastes, then imported to the U.S.

"Some of the things that appeal to European consumers don't necessarily have the same appeal to U.S. consumers," Sargent said.

Still, Mini has fared relatively well in the battered U.S. auto market, which has been crippled by the recession, tighter lending standards and tumbling home values. For the first five months of the year, the brand sold 16,780 vehicles in the U.S., down 21 percent from the same period last year.

But the entire U.S. auto market is down 37 percent during the same period, and Mini has picked up about a tenth of a percent of market share as a result.

Mini remains a niche player. Japan's Toyota Motor Corp., by contrast, sold more than 600,000 vehicles through May this year. Its sales are down about 39 percent for the period.

Mini has set a goal of improving its annual sales by "double-digit" percentages starting in 2011 from its peak in 2008 of 54,077 vehicles sold.

"We think that the United States' society is changing fundamentally, that people are more open to small cars than they were before," McDowell said.

If McDowell is right, Mini is in a good place. It is one of few automakers that have cultivated a reputation for small, fuel-efficient cars that still retain a sporty feel. Minis are not geared toward economy buyers, but the lowest-end Mini Cooper starts at less than $20,000, placing it within reach of many shoppers.

Even if McDowell is wrong about Americans wanting small cars, consumers may not have much of a choice. The Obama administration last month announced new standards that dramatically raise the industry's fuel economy over the next decade. The new standards are likely to be a challenge for the Detroit Three. Not so for Mini, most of whose vehicles already average at least 30 mpg.

At the same time, consumers and industry experts expect the price of gas to continue rising and small cars to continue to supplant trucks and SUVs as consumers' car of choice. Competitors like General Motors Corp. and Chrysler Group LLC — known more for their hulking SUVs than nimble fuel-sippers — have plans to launch new small cars in the coming years.

"It's interesting to me that the car of the future may be a lot like the Mini Cooper Clubman today," McDowell said, referring to the roomiest version of the car.

Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
 
Have alot of fun with it! I agree that the Mini is more fun (both in appeal and driving fun) than a VW Diesel... although I would like both in my garage!
 
Originally Posted By: wafrederick1
The Mini has some Chrysler parts and I have seen one with the Chrysler 2.0 engine with the Mini valve cover on it


arsezapper1 must have read the reports on that one.
 
That is definitely an anti-minivan. Good choice.

You can have fun just looking at that car, you don't even have to drive it to have fun.
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Ignore the mouth breathers, and enjoy it.
 
Great car. Most of the people that negate the Mini have never owned/drivin one. My mom bought one last year brand new. I love driving it, I may even buy one when my Mazda wears out. She has a non-turbo model and gets 40 mpg on the interstate.

Yeah I'd definitely change the oil before 15,000 miles. The oil filter is behind the engine, passenger side. You change it from the top. Its a cartridge type filter. Can get kind of messy, but not hard to do.

Enjoy!
 
Originally Posted By: wafrederick1
The Mini has some Chrysler parts and I have seen one with the Chrysler 2.0 engine with the Mini valve cover on it


Some TRUTH from your keyboard, sort-of.

The first gen new mini (got it?) used a 1.4L and 1.6 (IIRC) version of Chrysler's 4 cylinder engine that was part of the Neon's family of 4 cylinder engines. (Yes, the Tritec from Chrysler and Rover, both 1.4 and 1.6L engines.)

However, when Chrysler became Daimler Chrysler, the folks at BMW were having a cow over buying engines from their arch rival and came up with their own engine for use in the 2007 model Mk 2 BWM Mini's. (Well they worked with Peugeot to create a new 1.4L and 1.6L engine.)
 
I love the way they look, and in fact asked on the Vehicles forum here about the stretched model, the Clubman. Fun is important, and so is gas mileage. I suspect the Mini will be tops in both departments for you. Let us know how the A/C works in FL.

Unfortunately I can't test drive one -- we don't even have a dealer here in The Swamp; the nearest is in Baton Rouge. I don't fancy driving 180 miles round trip for service, even if BMW does pay for it.
 
Great purchase!

At last, someone buying a car for fun-to-drive!

Let us know how you like it.
 
I would put a lot of miles on it the first year so any problem it has would show up and be fixed under warranty. After that, it would be a nice reliable car. Mini is a niche car that handles very well. It is also very safe and does well in crash test. Most modern cars are pretty reliable so with TLC, many will make it pass 200k miles without much problem. A majority of ownership problems come from people that would betch and moan about anything and doesn't reflect the true reliability of a vehicle. I know a lot of people here with cars with very little problem but CR reports claim these particular models are plaqued with issues. Personally, CR is something that must be ignored entirely when car shopping. It does nothing but clouding car buyers' mind and force them to narrow their search to just a few models. As I recall, CR didn't catch the Honda's transmission or the Toyota's sludge problems.
 
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Originally Posted By: XS650
That is definitely an anti-minivan. Good choice.

You can have fun just looking at that car, you don't even have to drive it to have fun.
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Ignore the mouth breathers, and enjoy it.



I have to agree. There is nothing passe about it. When I acquire fame and fortune, one will be in my stable.

..and I'm working on a side vent
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