russellbridge
A2OC Donor
My A2 went to forum member ChumsofManUtd a few months ago as I felt it was getting a bit long in the tooth, and wasn’t giving a good impression to clients (I run a small architectural practice in Manchester).
I thought I’d share some thoughts on it’s replacement – a s/h’ 08 Mini Clubman Cooper D with Sport Pack bought privately with 71k on the clock, for a good deal at £6500. (pictures below)
In short, style over function, poor French diesel engine, similar mpg to A2. Annoyed at BMW for clearly erroneous mpg claims and even worse, a large over-reading on the OBC (DIS equivalent).
Reliability
Maybe I’ve been unlucky, but the car has so far needed almost £3k spent on it, mainly due to a blocked oil pick up in the engine and a blocked oil feed to the turbo resulting in a complete turbo failure. This seems quite a common failure on this PSA 1.6 diesel unit, and on seeing the quality of the failed oil pick up part, it’s easy to understand why. I’m not happy at myself for not spotting that the Mini D has a PSA sourced engine, as this would have influenced my decision to buy. A failing start stop system was traced to a failing ABS seal at £300-odd from mini.
Style
Probably the main reason the mini was top of the list – a quality, classless external design with good overall feel to the interior architecture. Internally, the leather seats and sunroof give it a great feel. The quality of the interior however isn’t brilliant and there’s quite a few bits rattling or not fitting as they should, and the leather isn’t great quality. There’s quite a few bits where style has obviously won over function – massive interior mirror which blocks your view forwards/left, completely illogical stereo controls to name but two. The indicator operation is also silly but I think this is common across all BMW's.
Interior
Despite it being a physically bigger car, the interior space is almost identical to the A2. It has got 3 seats in the back but I can’t see how anyone could get in the middle one, so effectively it’s a four seater with a similar split boot to the A2. The A2 interior looked dated when we picked it up five years ago and it didn’t get any better with time, however everything fitted together well even after being apart a few times, and the leather is very good.
Performance
Overall it feels about as fast as my 1.4tdi 75 remapped by Stealth to 103bhp. The mini is standard at 120bhp, but it’s heavier, and it’s geared a lot longer. Not as strong as the A2 up to 2000rpm, then there’s a bit more from 3000 to 5000rpm, but if you’re economy-driving, you never use this! The engine is more rattly when cold, and doesn’t make as nice a noise as the A2’s three-pot thrum. I spoke to Vince about doing a remap on the mini but he said he wouldn't because of the weak turbo. Not a good sign!
Economy
I wanted a car with better economy than the A2, and so I was lead to a large extent on it’s replacement by mini’s mpg figures and mpg websites (ie HonestJohns real mpg etc) where people state what mpg they’re actually getting. However, BMW’s claims of 69mpg (combined) are downright lies, made much worse by an OBC which is over-reading by 8-10% when compared to brim-brim, so I suspect many of the online reports are incorrect also. I’m currently getting a 54-56mpg OBC reading to a full tank which is actually 48-52mpg brim-brim, on a mix of driving routes and distances (mostly quite quick). In comparison I was getting 47-53 in the A2 on the same mix. I’ve yet to do a full tank at 60mph so I’ll report back when I have, although a 100 mile round trip to Liverpool today suggests a 70+ OBC reading is achievable.
NVH
There’s a lot of tyre noise and wind noise at fast motorway speeds, worse than the A2. It’s about the same at 60mph.
Ride, Handling
I swapped the 18” run flat’s it came with to 15” non-run flats straight away. The ride on the run flats was horrendous and downright dangerous IMHO – if you hit a ridge in the road on a fast bend the car would physically jump a few inches sideways. The ride on 15’s is slightly better than the A2 (less harsh and brittle), but with much better body control, far less roll, and dry and wet handling is much better. Having seen the construction of the run flats when I had one replaced, I'd never use them again -it's a really dumb solution of a solid 1.5" block of rubber at each side of the tyre with an inflatable bit in the middle.
Dealer
Same as all other dealers – I refuse to pay more money to have the pleasure of having the mechanics advice filtered through a clueless receptionist, so I use a good independent instead. For the Mini it’s BM Tech in Salford who I’ve found very good and honest.
Overall
I like the Mini, but I’m disappointed by the use of a poor quality engine and BMW’s marketing lies and over-egging the OBC. I’m going to keep it for the foreseeable future, as I can’t think of anything better at the moment other than chopping back to an A2. If I had the choice of a £6k fully spec’d ’05 A2 tdi, and this £7k fully spec’d ’08 mini D, it’d be a very close call. The mini doesn’t get anywhere near the A2 for a complete engineering package, with a great little (remapped) engine. The Mini wins on style and handling.
I thought I’d share some thoughts on it’s replacement – a s/h’ 08 Mini Clubman Cooper D with Sport Pack bought privately with 71k on the clock, for a good deal at £6500. (pictures below)
In short, style over function, poor French diesel engine, similar mpg to A2. Annoyed at BMW for clearly erroneous mpg claims and even worse, a large over-reading on the OBC (DIS equivalent).
Reliability
Maybe I’ve been unlucky, but the car has so far needed almost £3k spent on it, mainly due to a blocked oil pick up in the engine and a blocked oil feed to the turbo resulting in a complete turbo failure. This seems quite a common failure on this PSA 1.6 diesel unit, and on seeing the quality of the failed oil pick up part, it’s easy to understand why. I’m not happy at myself for not spotting that the Mini D has a PSA sourced engine, as this would have influenced my decision to buy. A failing start stop system was traced to a failing ABS seal at £300-odd from mini.
Style
Probably the main reason the mini was top of the list – a quality, classless external design with good overall feel to the interior architecture. Internally, the leather seats and sunroof give it a great feel. The quality of the interior however isn’t brilliant and there’s quite a few bits rattling or not fitting as they should, and the leather isn’t great quality. There’s quite a few bits where style has obviously won over function – massive interior mirror which blocks your view forwards/left, completely illogical stereo controls to name but two. The indicator operation is also silly but I think this is common across all BMW's.
Interior
Despite it being a physically bigger car, the interior space is almost identical to the A2. It has got 3 seats in the back but I can’t see how anyone could get in the middle one, so effectively it’s a four seater with a similar split boot to the A2. The A2 interior looked dated when we picked it up five years ago and it didn’t get any better with time, however everything fitted together well even after being apart a few times, and the leather is very good.
Performance
Overall it feels about as fast as my 1.4tdi 75 remapped by Stealth to 103bhp. The mini is standard at 120bhp, but it’s heavier, and it’s geared a lot longer. Not as strong as the A2 up to 2000rpm, then there’s a bit more from 3000 to 5000rpm, but if you’re economy-driving, you never use this! The engine is more rattly when cold, and doesn’t make as nice a noise as the A2’s three-pot thrum. I spoke to Vince about doing a remap on the mini but he said he wouldn't because of the weak turbo. Not a good sign!
Economy
I wanted a car with better economy than the A2, and so I was lead to a large extent on it’s replacement by mini’s mpg figures and mpg websites (ie HonestJohns real mpg etc) where people state what mpg they’re actually getting. However, BMW’s claims of 69mpg (combined) are downright lies, made much worse by an OBC which is over-reading by 8-10% when compared to brim-brim, so I suspect many of the online reports are incorrect also. I’m currently getting a 54-56mpg OBC reading to a full tank which is actually 48-52mpg brim-brim, on a mix of driving routes and distances (mostly quite quick). In comparison I was getting 47-53 in the A2 on the same mix. I’ve yet to do a full tank at 60mph so I’ll report back when I have, although a 100 mile round trip to Liverpool today suggests a 70+ OBC reading is achievable.
NVH
There’s a lot of tyre noise and wind noise at fast motorway speeds, worse than the A2. It’s about the same at 60mph.
Ride, Handling
I swapped the 18” run flat’s it came with to 15” non-run flats straight away. The ride on the run flats was horrendous and downright dangerous IMHO – if you hit a ridge in the road on a fast bend the car would physically jump a few inches sideways. The ride on 15’s is slightly better than the A2 (less harsh and brittle), but with much better body control, far less roll, and dry and wet handling is much better. Having seen the construction of the run flats when I had one replaced, I'd never use them again -it's a really dumb solution of a solid 1.5" block of rubber at each side of the tyre with an inflatable bit in the middle.
Dealer
Same as all other dealers – I refuse to pay more money to have the pleasure of having the mechanics advice filtered through a clueless receptionist, so I use a good independent instead. For the Mini it’s BM Tech in Salford who I’ve found very good and honest.
Overall
I like the Mini, but I’m disappointed by the use of a poor quality engine and BMW’s marketing lies and over-egging the OBC. I’m going to keep it for the foreseeable future, as I can’t think of anything better at the moment other than chopping back to an A2. If I had the choice of a £6k fully spec’d ’05 A2 tdi, and this £7k fully spec’d ’08 mini D, it’d be a very close call. The mini doesn’t get anywhere near the A2 for a complete engineering package, with a great little (remapped) engine. The Mini wins on style and handling.
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