I used to have a 09 Cooper S and absolutley loved it. Best car I ever owned.

Got a divorce, had a mid-life crisis, and traded it in for a BMW Z4 Coupe... Just because it looks like the Batmobile... Trouble is, I live in Colorado and it's my only car. Needless to say, it's absolutley worthless on a snow day. It's fun,... don't get me wrong, but it's not sensible in this state and it's still not as fun as my MINI was...

So, after a 2 year hiatus, I'm going back to MINI. However, I'm looking at the ALL4 since I do snowboard and camp a lot.

Now to my question...

I've looked at several Countrymans on the lot, but as you all know, there are a million different ways to customize them and many features are not generally produced unless they are special ordered...

Bottom line, I like a lot of buttons, switches, and lights on my interior... call me crazy, but that's how I am. I don't even necessarily care about the technology or functionality as much as I just like the "Flair"... For example, My 09 had the multifunction wheel, but no blue tooth...But I did have the buttons and the light. I'm looking at getting MINI Connected just to have the additonal buttons and switches, but not looking at NAV...


I had to special order my Cooper S because I ABSOLUTLEY COULD NOT STAND the gap made on the console from where the Rear fog light toggle switch is. So, I HAD to order my car with the rear fog light... It also drove me nuts that I still had that blank plastic nub where the defrost button went on cars for Canada but they said it was not available on any car sent to the US.

The Countryman dash is different... In order to have no gaps or blank switches on the dash/console, what options should I be looking at putting on my Countryman? I noticed there are a few rectangular panels on the lower center and some are blank? What options would I get to have as many buttons and switches as possible? Also, does anyone have a picture of their countryman dash with all of bells and whistles?

And no... I'm not a crazy person... just kinda particular on this one thing... Prolly becasue I'm a 007 fanatic and I love all of the switches and buttons.

 

On the roof mounted switches top center is sunroof.
On the middle left and right are 3 larger buttons with 3 green dots.....high, med, low for heated seats.
On the bottom row there is a fog light button...lights up in center speedometer on low beam...to the right is a blank panel. Then further right are sport button that has a green lighted dot, and then to the right are the DSC buttons.
To my knowledge the blank is for a european option....maybe someone else has better knowledge. My CM All4 Auto has Nav with miniconnect....great option if you like settings....but they are on the screen. My camera is not working. Hope this helps.
P.s. the blank plate on the bottom is not real noticable because it is so low. I was going to try to figure out how to make it a switch but not sure how everything comes apart so I decided not to mess with it for now.

 

I did some similar research before ordering my CMS All4 (which is not actually here yet). I wanted to fill all switch and button panels. On my 05 Cooper S, I paid for the rear fog light just so I could fill the panel, too. I've probably used it 10 or 15 times in heavy fog in the past 7 years.

As I understand it, the blank on the bottom row on the Countryman is a button on European Mini's for the engine stop/start feature on manual transmissions. When enabled, the engine will automatically stop and start when you are in stop and go traffic, and the button would let you turn it off.

It sounds like a cool feature that we don't get in the US. Does anyone know if it can be retrofitted?

As for the button panel, I think the blank for this is in the center position on a 5-button panel. So at least it's not out of balance.

 

I want that Start-Stop feature too!

 

It looks like I was not quite right about the bottom button panel. I looked at some more pictures and posts on this site, and there appear to be seven buttons in the panel, three of which are blank.

FiremanMike's comment (post 95 on this thread) says that he's missing a switch in the headliner (sunroof switch, I think), a button in the A/C panel that is probably the front windshield heater that is not available in the US, and three blanks in the bottom panel. I think one is the start/stop, another is probably rear fogs, which also are not a US option, and I have no idea what the third is.

When my Countryman comes in, I'll take some pictures of the switch and button panels and post them. If I can remember to do it between all the motoring, that is...

I thought it was pretty easy to find out what all of the switch options were on my 2005 Cooper S, but for some reason, I've had a tough time finding out about the Countryman buttons and switches.