My baby that I have been waiting for, tracking from start to finish, and patiently awaiting arrival finally came in late last week. I picked it up on Saturday.

Pick up went well, but very long, over 3 hours. I complicated it with a trade and ended up dropping the trade from the deal after a ridicuously low trade amount. I have seen other posts on how low mini dealers can be, but I had no idea.

Went up to wine country, Sonoma, California (actually Kenwood, CA) to a property that we own/rent there, with the top down going and returning. Pictures to follow from the wine country once there is bud break on the vines. 65 degrees both Saturday and Sunday with overcast. What an experience! My wife kept asking if I had bugs in my teeth as I was smiling non stop!

I drove around the cottage Sunday am with a buddie and we were looking at other properties and this bicyclist passed us as we were enjoying the tunes (from another post of great driving music on these boards) and as he passed us he said to us, "Sweet Ride". I felt like a million bucks. It is amazing what this mini does to you. I feel younger, etc, etc.

Love the Nav system, although still have to do some more reading to really get the most out of it. Want to put in the Dice kit for the iPod, but in the mean time, the Aux connection in the glove box works great. The H/K system is really powerful. Very pleased I got it, especially when the top is down you can really crank it.

Still working on a name. My wife likes: "Coup-pet". She is already referring to it as "the other woman".

Pictures below:

 

Great story, Macbest! Your wife sounds like a great gal and a realist, to boot! (MINI pun...LOL) Have a great time with your new baby! Happy motoring!

 

Love that color

 

Looks familiar!

Great, great car. You will enjoy it more and more. Love the auto! Wait till you get past the break-in miles - then play with the paddles and see what she will do - you'll be amazed. Takes a little while to really master the paddles for performance driving - which is counterintuitive and why some folks who try them for a day or two aren't convinced...

 

Paul:

Agree on the paddles. They do take a bit getting used to. I'm quickly discovering that I don't like the car in regular auto, that Sport Auto is way more fun and the overdrive that regular auto kicks into on the freeway feels almost sluggish. Too low RPMs for me when even going over an overpass.

After being on these boards for a while now, and reading the owners manual in advance, I thought I knew everything about the car. I'm finding that is not the case. I guess sitting down tonight with all the owners manuals (and a glass of wine) is the order of business tonight to read up!

 

Yep - there's a lot to learn - lots of subtle stuff in there.

You're absolutely right about "D" vs. "SD". I figured that out day one. Then drove SD almost entirely for the first few months, but wasn't getting the gas mileage I wanted. Now I've learned to use SD around town, getting on and off the highway, etc. but drop it into "D" when I'm settled in for a boring stretch on the highway - those low RPMs save tons of gas - my mileage in SD was around 21mpg, maybe 24mpg on the highway. Now on long trips with proper mix of SD and D (including some twisties in manual) I can get about 28mpg. Much better.

 

Just hit break in mileage of just over 2000 miles. Now about them paddles. what is the best way to max out performance with them?

Great looking ride!!! Enjoy!

 

My preference lately has been the M/D mode.

I leave the car in D most of the time, but whenever I need a little more oomph, or when coming up to a stop, I use the paddles. After a few seconds the transmission will switch itself back to D mode. I've been reserving SD mode for the hills and twisties.

 

It just takes some experimentation to get a feel for ideal RPM shift points, how much to stay in the throttle, etc. But in general, if I'm performance driving in twisties, I'll stay on the throttle and shift at will - including in corners which I know would ordinarily be bad form... the problem a lot of folks have when coming from a manual is their programmed behaviour of lifting off the throttle to shift... but the automatic kinda does that for you in software... so I stay in it...

I pretty much ONLY use the paddles for performance driving, or popping into manual mode from SD to pass someone, etc. While just driving down the road, why bother? That's what the automatic part is for...