You can disable DSC but not by default. It will reset itself every time you start the car. Same with traction control.

 

You may can count on the tritec even longer. From the latest MC2 magazine. "AS exciting as the new mini engine may be the tritec engine is not gone forever,. It will appear in mini convertibles until a replacement engine arrives in a few years time. However, the Chinese manufacturer LIFAN uses this engine in its 520 model and has expressed considerable interest in the Brazillian factory. It is therefore possible tha this engine could reappear in future Chinese imports."

So for all the tritec lovers, you may can still in the future buy a car with a tritec.

 

I plan to keep my car a long time as well. My new mini will be a second car for me. I think long term, I'd prefer an engine designed by BMW and built in a BMW factory over a Chrysler Engine built in Brazil.

I will admit that the tritec however, has proven to be a reliable workhorse engine.

 

Yes it is hardcoded and the technology rapdily outdates, but as long as the hardware is good there is no reason to change the firmware. To use the pc analogy I don't like, an old pc will run fine with its original sw, but try to load vista and it will go bonkers. Most older cars still on the road and taken care of that have O2 sensors, fuel injection, etc. have an ECU and have never or will never need a refresh. As long as your version works, there is no need to upgrade. If it does go bad it can always be refreshed to the original version you had. Its not like storing the code somewhere takes up alot of warehouse space, the manufacturer will have it.

 

I didnt realize the old engine is made in Brazil... I love Brazil but I'll take the Peugeot engine any day...

 

I love Brazil, Brazilian Jazz and everything Brazil, even down to the bulletproof Tritecs.

Actually, Brazil has taught a lesson to the almighty United States in terms of cutting off foreign oil dependency from rogue nations. In this matter, Brazil is like 30 years ahead of the US.

Although I have owned my share of French cars in my lifetime, I would still approach French automotive products with a slight dose of caution. Nothing French in terms of cars has ever done well in the United States. Peugeot folded tent back in 1994, Renault left at the end of the 1980's and Citroen aborted plans to enter the US market in the early 1990's.

So the R56 "Prince"engine carries the huge responsability to prove that French engineering and quality have make a total turn around. If the Prince engine is successful to that end, I can see Peugeot making a comeback in this country in 4-5 years from now.

And before we engage in thrash talk about the TRITEC engine just because it is made in Brazil, here is the official Tritec Motors website. A good read:

www.tritecmotors.com.br

Select the English section of the website.

 

Using the same logic you would never buy an automobile made in the United Kingdom given their reputation for poor build quality, remember the TR4 through TR8 as well as the Cricket? In actual fact, BMW is the owner of MINI. They have thrown millions upon millions bringing us the most up to date automobile.

 

One thing no one has considered--after market parts and such. As an example, Porsche no longer makes a single part for the old 356 model, yet it's possible to resurrect rusty old "barn finds" totally from after market suppliers. Our classic Porsche is 43 years old, but runs just fine, thank you.

Any car with a large enough production run and a good number of enthusiasts will have plenty of suppliers.

 

Its not solely a Puegot engine. The engineering is BMW with Peugot providing teaming in areas of manufacturing. The version for the Mini is built in a BMW plant. Not trash talking the tritec, as I said it has proven to be a good work horse engine. But technology advances and the new engine is a step in the right direction.

 

I grew up in South American and spent considerable time in Brasil among other places. Brazilian manufacturing is of pretty good quality but down there Brazilian cars are the cheap options and the Renaults, Citroens and Peugeot are the more expensive ones --cars like the VWs, Minis and Hondas we drive here are just for the rich as they cost about double what they do here...

I do admire the country for its policy on ethanol... I rode in those ethanol-driven VW-Bug cabs many times!

 

I strongly disagree. Firmware enables a company to take a general purpose chip and turn it into a single purpose machine. Once it's designed and debugged and installed in a car, IT WILL NOT GET OUTDATED. Please don't give people the impression that a car is like a PC which might not run Vista, or the latest video game if it's more than a few years old and therefore they need to be thrown away because its obsolete.

Cars leave the factory with their programs and can use those programs for 30+ years. Can a computer fail? Of course. Can firmware be corrupted? When manufacturers went to flash proms the answer is yes, but that doesn't begin to suggest that we'll all be looking for a Cobol programmer and can't find one so the car's laid up. It could be a concern with a car like the Vector with limited production, but BMW will sell millions of these cars.

 

I'd also like to keep the car for 30 years. The foil to this plan would more likely be a transition of our whole society to an alternative fuel source. It is highly likely that a shift like that could make it cost prohibitive to operate a gasoline powered car (or maybe even illegal) by 2037.

I don't know what kind of rust prevention MINI uses, but if I lived in the rust-belt and wanted to purchase a car for the long term, I'd research additional rustproofing, just to see if there is any benefit on a modern car. Looking at my headlight surrounds on the bonnet last night made me wince when thinking about how salty water, dirt and moisture will catch and sit in unsealed layers of steel there. That's my guess as to where R56's will have a rust problem. I little seal sealer there might have been prudent.

I wouldn't have bought one if I didn't have faith in BMW to build a good engine, but I also trust PSA as a reliable partner in its design and manufacturing too. The fact that 2 companies are using it will increase the number of cars needing long term support for the engine, and eventually one manufacturer will likely build it beyond the life of the other, so that can't hurt. I disagree with C4's statement that the Tritec engine will likely cost less to service. That's pure speculation. Cost with engine maintainability are usually associated with number of components (60 valves vs 8 valves, 12 cyl vs. 4) or the simple fact that upscale manufacturers charge more for parts, and their dealers and independents charge more for service.

Get an R56 and treat it right!

 

Would one of you computer savvey folks please clear up some confusion for me regarding firmware. I bought an early Toshiba HD-DVD player. The early ones weren't able to make use of all the latest audio features. Later, I received a DVD (another option was to download) from Toshiba that changed the firmware (their term) to upgrade it to include all high end audio features.

I'm reading some of these posts as, "you can't upgrade firmware". But ... (see above).

My prius has, at times, had computer parameters changed during routine service as Toyota learned more about fine tuning the Prius for best performance/mileage. Is this firmware that's being changed? The Prius computer control gets changed as more is learned, can't it be that way with the R56?

 

You can upgrade firmware. Basically it's the program stored on an eprom (think along the lines of a USB memory stick).

 

Maybe I did not say this clearly and its misinterpreted. I found the article I had been reading and this is the discussion about modern electronic nannies

The Article is not online but from a monthly magazine

Electronic Driving Aids
by Allan Caldwell

Now this is not about BMWs and the systems are move advance than DSC but the principle is the same ...

The discussion is about the equivalent, but more sophisticated, of DSC and PASM, electronic adjusted suspension that in real-time adjusts the shocks ...

"The big question for many owners is how reliable these ... new systems will be. ...

With the current trend of using digital processing and simpler implementations, it may boil down to how long the initial software algorithms in the subsystem processors will last and whether or not the software could ever be upgraded or replaced"

This is the essence of the issues and seems pretty cut and dried to me. So, in 30 years will these systems be able to be upgraded or replaced? The mere fact its questioned does not bode well.