February 19, 2008:

Coming soon? on MotoringFile

My first stop for MINI news is still GoMotoring, which very clearly aggregates loads of MINI website feeds (including mine!); visiting just now I saw the following feeds for MotoringFile:

The interesting one for me is R56 MCS Engine’s Cold Start Issue Exposed, but clicking it takes you to a dead page of MotoringFile:

Presumably it just means the story has been written, but then date-edited to appear in a day or two … exciting ;)

It’ll be interesting to read about the issue - I did not have any “cold start” related issues while I owned GBMINI#5, but then I didn’t own it for long! GPMINI has always been fine starting at any temperature, but GBMINI#6 exhibits the same “cold start” issues that I’d previously experienced on my other MCS’s - and like those MINIs, switching to a lower octane gasoline apparently sorts the issue for me.
It’ll also be interesting to read the MotoringFile presentation of the issue - some people expect MotoringFile to be “good news only” regarding MINI …

While on the subject of the R56, I do have a couple of final positive thoughts about that car …
In case I wasn’t clear previously, the R56 claimed MPG improvements are obviously true - GBMINI#5 got between 28 and 29 mpg (real, not OBC) while I owned it. Both GPMINI and GBMINI#6 are getting between 23 and 24 over the same drives, time of year, etc.
In the summer, when we don’t have winter formulation gasoline, and when I do longer drives for MINI events, I’ll get 30+ in GPMINI - so with the R56 I might expect to get as much as 35! Pretty good, I’d say.

The other thing is that the R56 automatic air-conditioning is improved over that in GBMINI#6 (the first auto-a/c MINI I’ve owned since my first, way back in 2002). The non-R56 auto-a/c in GBMINI#6 works much better than it did back in 2002, but the R56 system was quieter and a little smarter too … for example, on cold days I like to blow the air on my hands for a while to warm them up (gloves? me! no …) so in GBMINI#6 I’ll press the hands and feet buttons (using the hands button only is too noisy, so send to feet also to reduce the noise), then after a while press the buttons again to revert to auto.
But in the R56, I noticed that after a while, when the air is warm, it would automatically direct a subtle amount of warm air to my hands, while still blowing to windshield and feet (something the older systems can’t do!) … almost not enough air to notice, but enough to warm my fingers. Nice touch :)
(but no, it’s not enough to make me warm to the R56!)

Posted by GBMINI at 01:47 pm | R56
Comments: 8 (post new comment)

  1. DanC (2008/02/19 @ 2:43 pm)

    I have abandoned going to gomotoring and just use google reader. There I get a partial article of these phantom posts over at motoringfile. I can at least read the beginning of the article. shhhh don’t tell anyone. ;-)

  2. Gabe (2008/02/19 @ 2:51 pm)

    Ha! That’s hysterical that that got picked up this morning via RSS. I think it went live in the feed for about a minute at most.

    Anyway, yes it is suppose to go live tomorrow since it still needs to be proof read one last time.

    I do have to question the “MF only brings good news” sentence. I can’t remember the site ever not reporting something (that was worth reporting and that we knew about) that put the car or the brand in a bad light. The last thing I remember was the whole door sill rust issue which we posted images of and created a Flickr group for. We went so far as to suggest a possible way for MINI USA to deal with the issue and even posted a link to the official bulletin.

    And if there is something you feel we missed, remember we will happily take reader contributions!

  3. aznqtboy984 (2008/02/19 @ 3:12 pm)

    I was lucky enough to read the cold start article on MF this morning.

  4. Josh Wardell (2008/02/19 @ 4:25 pm)

    It seems there’s always been a 50% chance when clicking on a gomotoring link that it will not be found at MF. It really gets annoying. Sometimes it does appear within a day or two (and sometimes it never does!) but it is aggravating…why publish it via rss and tease us?

    Then again there also seems a more than 50% chance a MF article is about BMW these days…

  5. MeanMrMstrd (2008/02/19 @ 8:42 pm)

    My TwistyBitz.com seems to be fine over at GoMotoring. It’s probably the only reason why I get any comments at all.

  6. snid (2008/02/19 @ 10:42 pm)

    That story wound up in my RSS reader - the whole article. It will be good for lots of internet hysteria, and no real answers. IMHO.

  7. GBMINI (2008/02/20 @ 9:34 am)

    The story has now appeared on MotoringFile, discussing a loud engine rattle for some owners when the engine is started from cold.
    The writer suggests that the noise might be a non-issue, but then later says “my overall confidence level in this car is non-existent right now” - that’s not a nice feeling to have :(

    Curious (since the writer says engines have been returned to MINI for analysis) is the final comment from MotoringFile tag line which says “we’ve been touch with MINI USA … unaware of the issue …”!

  8. blalor (2008/02/22 @ 7:06 am)

    Two words for the author of the original article: Lemon Law. If your car’s been in the shop for a month (consecutively or cumulatively), I think you’re entitled to protection under the lemon law. I don’t know the details, and it may be state-by-state, but the general rule seems to be that repeated trips to the dealer for a problem they can’t solve and/or extensive time in the shop are sufficient reasons.

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