burble.. burble.. burble.. I would hate to have passengers stare, as I burble on my own…

I loved that sound when I drove the 06 – man….

It is good to grab all that world of info and make your own conclusions. Reading the “horror”stories from 4-5 years ago, would have been enough reason for me to forgo MINI as my car of choice… Quite on the contrary I am on my third one, looking forward to the fourth MINI in about 12 months from now and beyond.

All cars have problems, some more than others. In this “cut throat” industry, auto makers always have to find the “balance”between controlled costs and quality assurance which is a proven challenge in this fierce environment.

All I am sayin is this.. celebrate the car we all know and love, but we can’t close our eyes and ears to those who come forward and let us know about their problems with their cars.

I can understand issues as misaligned body panel gaps, broken ashtrays, blown speakers as ever present annoyances on an all new autos, but issues like noisy transmissions, failed clutches on cars that haven’t reached the 5K mile mark as a big”warning ‘red” flag.

BMW can’t afford to bring back the R56 to 2002-2003 quality levels.

The previous cars issues took years to overcome. For someone to start complaining about a car that (a) they haven’t seen first hand and (b) have no first hand experience with is very obviously premature.

BMW first year products have always had small issues – some more than others. But historically they’ve taken care of them. I’m sure i the R56 has any, they will be rectified.

I only hope that the issues reported back at MINI2.com are not the tip of an iceberg… And I seriously doubt people are going in there and making up stories either.

Don’t shoot the messenger. It is nice and all to be excited about the new car and all but there are always 2 sides to each story… The car seems to be a step up Sans certain design elements) from the R53, but there are problems being reported.

I have owned MINIs since 2002. I still have my 4 and a half year old MC CVT and love it to bits. But we had issues with the car the first year and a half of its life. Virtually every ‘02 and ‘03 owner was a “beta” tester for BMW. That was maybe acceptable back then, but I find much harder to swallow now.

BMW claims that the R56 is a better built car, so then prove it!

My ‘05 MCS with 22K miles has not had a single problem in 2 years. The ‘04 MCS before it was a rock solid car also. This clearly demonstrates that MINI can be serious about QC and deliver on it. There is no reason why MINI has to slack off in that department.

Unfortunately it seems to me that BMW’s approach to quality is to use first and second year owners as beta testers. MINI, BMW X3, BMW 5 series and the pattern repeats itself over and over again.

Been there done that. I am hoping here that the R55 will be a tight, solid vehicle, because I am not going to put up with beta testing for BMW ever again.

SO many people having problems such as popping spark plugs, transmission problems, and engine fires! : http://www.northamericanmotoring.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9 beware the R53!

Well said. It’s really sad to see people trying to discredit this new MINI by referencing minor build issues with the R50 and R53 were the kings or quality problems.

Guess what kind of posts you find in a trouble log? Certainly not the happy customers.

The happy ones don’t seem to feel a need to make a “reliable” log.

Read this post for a great “break-down” of all the trouble posts in that section you listed:

http://www.northamericanmotoring.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91476

SO many people having problems such as popping spark plugs, transmission problems, and engine fires! : http://www.northamericanmotoring.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=9 beware the R53!

Not to be the messenger of bad news, but just to provide a heads up on possible QC issues the new R56 is having:

http://www.mini2.com

I’m not sure if this got reported here, but even after seeing all the pics and reviews, I was still shocked to see a pic of the secret compartment above the glove box:

Yes – we talked about it on another article and posted a pic here.

Secret Compartment

Gabe – Did the US spec R56 you drove have Auto-up windows? Just curious if they added this in or not. Somehow I missed your original post for question submissions.

No.

A UK mag said that the weighting wasn’t conisistant while cornering. I really hope this isn’t true. Sorry for my late question.

I think the reported who was driving needs to work out a bit more. I felt no inconsistencies in all 5 cars I tracked.

Gabe. You mentioned JCW information coming next week. Please don’t taunt us. Tell us what you know NOW!!!

All in good time :)

Of the standard MCS seats, which did you prefer – leatherette or cloth?

To be honest I’m not a huge fan of the leatherette. I lived with them for three years and never really loved them the way I do my cloth/leather seats in my current MCS.

However the choice is much hard with the new MINI. For one the new cloth seems to be a step down from the space grey cloth previously offered. Secondly the new leatherette seems to be a step up.