Dave Bunting, a frequent contributer to MCO and President of MINI 5280 (a Denver area MINI club) has just written a first year review of his experience with his MINI. Here's some excerpts:

Nearly one year and 29000 miles have passed since I took delivery of my MINI Cooper S from Westchester MINI in Elmsford, New York and drove it back to Colorado. During that time my experience with the MINI has been mixed, but on balance I consider it to have been a positive.

…During the year, my MINI made a total of 10 trips to the dealership for service. At two of those visits, in addition to doing warranty repairs, scheduled maintenance was also performed (10k and 25k). My MINI suffered three repeated problems during this first year. Two of which have been fixed.

…That said, I do still enjoy the car. I'm happy with the handling, the performance, the small size with the efficient use of space, and the design of the car. The giant killer aspect of the car is appealing too (We're up against the E36 ///M3, the E46 ///M3, and the ///M Roadster in the BMWCCA autocross series and hanging tough).

You can read the entire article here.

I would have liked to have done something this grand with my review but I simply never found the time. It would have been interesting to compare the two as most of Dave's issues only apply to the Cooper S rather than the Cooper which I have.