How is the New MINI in Wet Driving?

With fall in full swing storms can bring lots of rainy days. Autocar recently put seven cars to task in wet conditions and MINI was in the mix.
Let’s start by saying the MINI was the only front wheel drive car of the bunch, but that’s okay because MINIs are used to standing out in a crowd anyway. Five of the cars used in the comparison were AWD models including the Range Rover Sport, Porsche 911 Carrera 4S, Volkswagen Golf R, the Audi RS4 and Nissan’s GT-R. If the deck looks a little stacked against the MINI, it is. If they’d thrown in a Ford Focus, VW GTI, Chevy Sonic and Fiat 500 the MINI would have been among a few classmates. Still, it’s interesting to see how it performed.
The remaining two cars in the challenge were, of course, the MINI Cooper representing the FWD category and a lonely Toyota GT86 representing RWD cars notoriously hard to drive in wet conditions.
To summarize, the MINI Cooper ranked sixth out of seven. Not a great placement, but considering the performance specifications of the competition, the results aren’t too surprising.
One area the MINI ruled them all was 70 – 0 MPH braking. Our favorite little hatchback ranked first by coming to a complete stop in 55.2m.
Unfortunately, the competition in this roundup was tough on the Cooper as its next best showing was fourth in 30 – 0 MPH braking. It placed sixth in just about everything else. Of course a good set of winter tires might have changed this equation, but they would do so for all vehicles if so equipped. Don’t feel too badly though, the Toyota apparently slid across the pavement more than any other car in the challenge thanks to its rear wheel drive configuration.
At least there is one silver lining in this rain cloud: If you need to stop in a straight line in wet conditions, you’l be better off in your MINI than in some much more expensive vehicles.
You can read the whole comparison here.
7 Comments
<p>Why would Autocar compare 7 models in the wet when 5 are AWD while the other 2 are a FWD & a RWD? Like comparing apples & oranges! All should be the same configuration.</p>
<p>Also, it depends on tires. If summer tires, you’ll probably be slipping and a sliding. I just returned from a week in the Rockies. One day was a down pour all day. We had no problem with the roadster in the rain, other than the grooves the trucks made in the right lane. Couldn’t wait to get off on the two lane roads. I have all season performance Hankook tires.</p>
<p>obviously a slow news day at Autocar. who dreams this crap up?</p>
<p>What’s next with Autocar? Off-road capabilities among a Jeep Wrangler, a MINI Cooper S and a Porsche 911?</p>
<p>Read the article, they tested AWD, and threw in a FWD and a RWD for comparison. Also, read above:</p>
<p>the MINI Cooper representing the FWD category and a lonely Toyota GT86 representing RWD cars</p>
<p>Well read my statement. I’m clearly pointing out that it just doesn’t make any sense to compare AWD with FWD and RWD. There’s no point. Especially in the rain? Of course AWD will be better.</p>
<p>The article was NOT a comparison of AWD, FWD and RWD. It was a test of several different types of AWD vehicles with a lone RWD and FWD car thrown in just for comparison.</p>