Happy Canada Day everyone. I picked up the new car on Thursday and I got asked today where all the pictures are. Well, since I picked the car up it hasn’t stopped raining until late this afternoon. Over 2 days. I had hoped to do a road trip to have some fun with the new mini but the weather was just too crappy. But I’ve still managed about 170km’s or so.

First up, I have nothing but nice things to say about the crew I dealt with at Ottawa Mini. Levon, Arty and Zoe were all excellent and took the time to answer all my questions and make the entire process fun. I had heard that Mini dresses the car up a bit for the turn over but I have to say it was rather cute with the red bow 🙂

It’s been many many years since I have owned a car with a stick so still trying to find the exact feel for the shifting and determining which mode I like. Green is great for when your just on a long stretch but really sucks for acceleration from a dead stop. Sport mode makes you smile with awesome acceleration (and noise) but you know it’s guzzling the gas, but do I really care? And still trying to decide if I like Mid mode. Right now I have it in green and then switch to mid when I have to be stop and go. Sport I use when I need to merge into traffic. Still clicking all the buttons to see what they do 🙂 The steering is way more responsive then the VW was so I’m still a bit hesitant throwing the car around until I get real feel for it.

The question I keep getting asked is “do I like it”. Hard to give a definitive answer after just 2 days but I have to say it sure is comfortable and I like driving it. Definitely more exciting then the VW but very different as well. It doesn’t drive like an SUV (I’ve owned a few now) but it doesn’t exactly feel like a little sports car either. But I do like the feel and the drive. The seat sucks you right in with the comfort level and the amount of head and leg room is something I would never have thought possible in a mini. This thing is HUGE.

Gas mileage definitely is not the same as the TDI but it’s not bad either. After 2 days of combination of country roads and light city I’m sitting at 8.9l/100km and I think it will go lower as I sort my driving out and the engine gets broken in. Not to shabby if the gauge is accurate. I’ll do the math when I do the first fill-up to confirm the numbers.

Then there is the appearance. I know some think it’s as ugly as sin but I love it. I have noticed many looks from other drivers as well. Apparently at this point in time there are only about 175 of the 2017 model on the road in Canada. Not something people see everyday but I expect that will change when people start dong the math and figure out that it’s a pretty decent deal for a small SUV when compared to the competition.

Any regrets? Overall – nope. I love the colour and the black stripes really popped it. I love driving it and it appears to fit me like a glove. I wish I could have gotten a few more options but the price goes up quickly when you do that and I would probably not have gotten as good of a deal and I would have to wait upwards of 3 months for a custom order. I could have gotten more options with the small engine (3cyl 138hp) for near the same price as this one which has the bigger engine (4cyl 189hp) with 1 options package. For me the engine made more sense then all the bells and whistles with a small engine. I would have liked to have the Harmon Kardon sound system (they didn’t have a single one on the lot), although the stock one is pretty good and I would have liked the larger 8.3″ navigation multimedia system. I have to say that I like the center stack with the round screen and psychedelic lighting system 🙂 and they say the software is one of the best in the industry but I think Mini/BMW could do better but doubtful if it will be able to upgraded into my system when they do, although upgrades apparently do come down the pipe from time to time. I just suspect they will spend the money to upgrade the newer 8.3″ vice the 6.5″ which is older.

I’ll update in a few weeks/months after I’ve driven it a pile more and have some harder numbers and thoughts. For now I’m continuing to enjoy the car and having a blast. Now I just need to get the VW TDI out of the yard and a cheque in my pocket to pay off some of this new toy.