This guy is mine for 24 hours. I specifically requested a Cooper even.
A few things have been going on for the past few weeks. Let’s play catch-up! To start with, Bruce has been leaking like a sieve, needing more than 1 gallon of coolant over than past week and change. Secondly, I have been running an experiment, still trying to figure out the best way to drive this MINI with the automatic transmission.
For the last week, I have been making an attempt at moving the lever to the left. Not hitting the sport button, not turning off DSC, just moving the lever to the left. Oh, and then activating manual mode by moving the shift lever forward or backward. And, I have to admit, that it has made things markedly better. While throttle response is still horrendous, doing this has shown some improvement. Not quite enough to get me to stop wishing that this rubbish slush box was a manual, but enough to shut me up about it. Mostly.
Not sure exactly when the coolant leak started, but 2 weeks ago day after tomorrow, I actually had the overheat message on the screen. a quick stop to let him cool down and dump in some Prestone (shut up, I know), and I was back on the road without issue and have been ok since. Except for the very strong smell of coolant after driving to work or home. And the extraordinary use of coolant over the course of that time.
Since I’ve needed to have the Nav looked at since I bought this MINI, and since there is a dealer directly across the street from the office, and since I was beyond needing an oil change, I figured I would take him to the dealer. Extended warranty is covering the coolant leaks (thermostat and oil filter housing). The Nav is toast and would need a replacement head-unit to work correctly again. Oil has been changed. Oh, and I was told that one of my tail light assemblies would have to be replaced due to it getting melted at some point and causing an occassional brake light error.
While this is one of the best R5X MINIs I have even driven (and 1,000% better than Bruce), I’m still sticking by my previous comments in stating this is the MINI quality forgot. I know it’s something we have been talking about quite a bit on the show, but I thought another mention here wouldn’t hurt. I’m afraid of this MINI, which is something I thought I would never say. 90k miles on the clock and while I have already fixed the major things that are going to leak (typically), I can only sit back and think “what’s next?”.