Mini Countryman PHEV

Now the car is showing as May 20 build........... June 23rd delivery to dealership. I think the dealer is trying to placate me by telling me also that “they often appear 7-10 days early of the quoted delivery date” - every week long makes me wonder if I shouldn’t just keep the Sport and tell them where to shove the Countryman......... The RRS trade-in value is plummeting weekly too so I may end up either footing negative equity or leaving it on the local LR’s forecourt as they claim is possible with the PCP agreement.......

I was in the dealership this morning going through paperwork with the salesman in readiness for June 23 arrival when a transporter loaded with BMW’s and 2 Mini Countrymen appeared in front of the showroom........ I commented that the one on the top deck, over the transporter driver’s cab looked a similar spec to mine............ optional Gloss Black wheels and optional Gloss Black roof rails (standard are a different pattern black wheels and chrome finish roof rails) - salesman said mine is “the only one that he has sold with black roof rails” so once it was unloaded we went to check. Yea it’s mine after all the waiting it has appeared nearly 3 weeks before they said it would. If you click on the photos you will see them enlarged on Imageshack.


In BMW/Mini speak the colour is Melting Silver, the photos don’t show the amount of green/ yellow fleck in the metallic paint as it was a full on blue sky day here today, in LR speak it is lighter than Silicone Silver, more like the old Ipanema Sand that was available


I have opted for the standard trim for the interior - Black Cloth with leather seat squab and back - as was advised by several Mini owning friends that Mini’s leather creases very easily and isn’t anywhere as nice as Land Rover’s leather even in the lowest spec leather trimmed Land Rover. The odd shape on the dash top is the HUD unit - a screen appears from under the dash so you don’t need a vastly expensive reflective screen just to project the Sat-nav’s instructions, speed and road signs onto the windscreen

Big handover day today.........

Nice colour combo Tim....should be a hoot to drive around, and good build quality too.

Build quality is streets ahead of my RRS, electronic toys all just work and quickly - reversing cam comes on instantly reverse is engaged but can stay on a tad too long after D is selected. Overnight the other night the Mini Connected system downloaded a software and database up date remotely with no input from me - I knew about itvthe next morning when the big central screen showed a message to plug my iPhone into the USB socket in the armrest to update the Mini Connected app with some energy functionality........... cannot imagine a car with ICTP managing this without collapsing!
The tiny 36 litres petrol tank is still at the 1/2 tank mark after 312 miles as I have been able to do most of my motoring in electric mode and having a house roof covered in solarPV panels means I can recharge from almost flat to 26 miles range (full charge) in 3 hours and still export electricity to the national grid...... no rattles or squeaks to speak of ( the sunshades under the opening pano roof rattle when pushed back into their housings, other wise nothing to cause me to take the car back to the dealers for attention. The detailers who applied paint protection to my Sport found 11 paint defects that they couldn’t rectify and 9 that they could......... on the Countryman they didn’t find a single paint defect and told me that that is normal with Mini’s of all models and far less than on the BMW’s they get in.

(27-06-2018 10:15am)XFullFatTim Wrote:  cannot imagine a car with ICTP managing this without collapsing!

Over the air updates are in the latest (i.e. current) ICTP version 4 now being rolled out, if you ask them to flash it next time your car visits the dealer.

I don’t have a modern JLR car now! My Defender has a Parrot system that has never given me any updating problems