There are alot worse cars than the R55 when it comes to rear visibility.

As a longtime CR subscriber, I can say that they know what they're talking about when it comes to safety and reliability. But the really don't know anything about what makes a car more or less fun to drive. I use their price reports (alot of good that'll do you at the MINI dealer).

Alot of car critics are hyper-critical and don't realize that if you're in love with the clubman it takes 20 seconds to get used to more than adequate rear visibility.

 

The rear visibility is no big deal. Not the greatest in the world but nowhere near as bad as some in the press have so eagerly make it out to be.

Want bad visibility? Go and drive a MINI cabrio with the top up. That car has HUGE blind sports.

 

or the Toyota FJ LOL!

 

I'd suggest if you live in Oregon to check the SF Bay Area. There are 4 dealers here (Mini of Concord, East Bay Mini, Mini of Mountain View and Mini of SF.) There is also 1 dealer in Sacramento. I can personally vouch for Mini of Concord. Paid MSRP + Tax and License. A $500.00 fully refundable deposit is all that is required to order a car. Had a great buying experience and great service after the sale. As far as I know, all of the Bay Area dealers except for SF sell for MSRP. Plus if you buy down here you have your choice of many beautiful roads to drive back to Oregon on with 1 and 101 being my favorites.

 

On the advice of many of you, I contacted Mini in Las Vegas and ordered my car for delivery in July instead of December! My mother in law lives in Vegas, and we go their fairly often to see her anyway. Thanks again. By the way, that dealer does not install the Invisishield but has a outside shop that does it for $1000. Sounds like a lot to me.

 

Nice! The Vegas guys seemed like a good bunch of guys when we went in last week. My dealer (NY) didn't do the Invisisheild either but they had a guy come do it. It was 500 for the whole front I think it went about 1/4 the way up the hood and included all the lights and back of the mirrors.

 

I don't think that's a problem, this is what you will see when you are driving. I was concern at it before, but as many members said before me, I totally forget about it after a little while of driving

 

1000 is a little high.. I've heard more are in the 700-900 range. I paid 795.

When I was shopping around for dealers, the Vegas dealer was charging a premium on justacoopers-- which made NO sense to me to mark up the base model cooper.... so they didn't get my business. And they had an overly-agressive salesman who kept calling me after I said I was ordering elsewhere...

That said, you'll have a really fun drive home!

 

They are charging me the MSRP which I think is about as good as I can get.

 

Good. Charging a premium is just silly..

 

Haha! I was just thinking about running out to my Clubman and doing the same thing! MINI owners think alike!

 

600 for my front bra - $1000 is way too much, IMHO.

 

Congrats Mrdunn!!!!! Viva Las Vegas in July!!

By the way, there's a long "invisishield" or clear bra thread on this forum w/some good info on $$. Here it ishttps://www.northamericanmotoring.co...t=invisishield