The Smoking Tire Tests the MINI Four Door JCW Carbon Edition
The Smoking Tire (aka Matt Farah) spent some time in a F55 JCW Carbon Edition recently and came away with some mixed feelings. The issues he seems to have with it are all fixable with aftermarket additions. Interesting he doesn’t love the exhaust which is the highly acclaimed JCW Pro Exhaust. He also hates the runflats and does’t particularly care for the automatic (we tend to agree). But in general he really likes the car.
One note – Matt calls this a full JCW when it fact it’s not. The F55 four door isn’t offered as a JCW. This particular car is the Carbon Edition which is shod with a number of JCW accessories.
<p>I enjoy all of Matt’s videos, even the cars I don’t care about…..this one I have a higher interest in. I wish they would’ve given him a stick, I bet they didn’t make many stick Carbon Editions though which is a shame. If MINI would sell a real JCW F55 I’d be at the dealer trying to test drive one. This Carbon Edition in many ways shows us what’s wrong with MINI’s, its a package that doesn’t appeal to most of us, faux CF touches don’t make a car nicer. From the sound of it better tires would be the best thing they could do….</p>
<p>Sounds like he never opened the JCW exhaust baffle which would explain the lack of burble. Car is a whole different experience with that pipe open. Also not sure he was brought up to speed on all the specs of the car. The hp numbers he rattled off were of the full JCW not the Carbon.</p>
<p>That’s exactly what I was going to mention, Pedro. He definitely did not open the baffle because he would’ve heard the popping and cracking of the exhaust and had more response. I own the Carbon Edition in manual and it is incredible fun with loads of popping exhaust music. I specifically searched for a manual one and had to go out of state to get the only one I could find on the west coast. He had no idea it was a limited edition model either (if he did, he didn’t mention it) nor did he know that it’s 208hp not the full 228. Coupled with the fact that he bagged on the exhaust when he didn’t even operate it properly, this is not a very educated review in a lot of ways, so I’m disappointed.</p>
<p>MINI actually sent this “much less than knowledgeable” person a MINI to review? They should’ve sent an instructor along with it. This guy doesn’t know crap about the car he is testing.</p>
<p>I noticed he called it a full JCW too. Matt used to own a MINI, he should know the difference.</p>
<p>I enjoy all of Matt’s videos, even the cars I don’t care about…..this one I have a higher interest in. I wish they would’ve given him a stick, I bet they didn’t make many stick Carbon Editions though which is a shame. If MINI would sell a real JCW F55 I’d be at the dealer trying to test drive one. This Carbon Edition in many ways shows us what’s wrong with MINI’s, its a package that doesn’t appeal to most of us, faux CF touches don’t make a car nicer. From the sound of it better tires would be the best thing they could do….</p>
<p>Sounds like he never opened the JCW exhaust baffle which would explain the lack of burble. Car is a whole different experience with that pipe open. Also not sure he was brought up to speed on all the specs of the car. The hp numbers he rattled off were of the full JCW not the Carbon.</p>
<p>Good catch. I believe you can hear in the video that he didn’t.</p>
<p>That’s exactly what I was going to mention, Pedro. He definitely did not open the baffle because he would’ve heard the popping and cracking of the exhaust and had more response. I own the Carbon Edition in manual and it is incredible fun with loads of popping exhaust music. I specifically searched for a manual one and had to go out of state to get the only one I could find on the west coast. He had no idea it was a limited edition model either (if he did, he didn’t mention it) nor did he know that it’s 208hp not the full 228. Coupled with the fact that he bagged on the exhaust when he didn’t even operate it properly, this is not a very educated review in a lot of ways, so I’m disappointed.</p>
<p>He said a lot of stuff that was just flat wrong.. MINI should have sent an instructor along with the car.</p>
<p>Why is not popping and crackling ? Did he opened the the baffle or just put the sport mode on ?</p>
<p>Even my Cooper S is poping and crackling more than this Mini :/
I think, there is a problem.</p>
<p>MINI actually sent this “much less than knowledgeable” person a MINI to review? They should’ve sent an instructor along with it. This guy doesn’t know crap about the car he is testing.</p>