The Mini Countryman was bought as a replacement for the good old 2006 E87 BMW 118d Manual M-Sport. Which was a good little car to drive albeit fairly cramped on the inside.
Ours was like above but Sydney Blue (the other blue they offered at the time)
It was very fun in the corners but had a fair amount of turbo lag, so to get the most out of it, you had to keep the revs higher (aka mash the loud peddle).
This car had to go for the sake of my now eldest daughter. It was just not up to having a car seat in the rear, and average height adult in front of it. Plus the boot was rather small.
There was also an interesting issue with it where the traction control would suddenly bang in and disable itself (which both scared the crap out of you, and made driving in slippery condition a almost useless). It turns out it was a faulty steering angle sensor which comes as part of the slip ring, which BMW wanted £700 plus labour for. This was not such a big issue to warrant this kind of money spent on a car i wasn't planning to keep.
Side note: Mrs P thought the 118d was massive (considering she came form a Ford Luxury Ka (top spec, don't you know).
Finance
We traded in the 118d at a BMW/Mini main dealer and got the Mini on a 4 year PCP with (wait for it) £7k up front (118d plus £2k). It costs us £141 per month with the GAP, tyre, alloy insurance etc.Fun fact: if you buy an insurance product from a main dealer, don't assume this product is valid at other main dealers in different networks.
After having PCP, i can't recommend it. Never get PCP, unless you will be able to meet all the requirements for the term (mileage, servicing etc). Or you don't plan to get another car after. (i.e. perpetual leaser).
It's just not worth it. In my opinion.
And MGFV are a load of BS. Even with all the up front cash the Mini was still depreciating in-line with what's owed on the car, mainly due to interest. The up front deposit has only given us lower monthly payments (which isn't a bad thing) but I'll never see anywhere near that money back when selling. Plus at the end of the term there's still a ridiculous balloon payment (which is mainly capital, as you've been paying for hire and interest).
If you want to own the car at the end, the best thing to do get a loan (in my opinion). The rates are better and will track better with depreciation if you take care of the car.
If you want a new car every couple of years, just lease it.
Anyway I've side tracked a bit.... The Mini.
We went for a 2011 Countryman SD All4 Auto (ours has every option except JCW bodykit and wheels, even the front rally style lamps.)
Living with it
To begin with it was fun to drive, albeit a bit slow. After owning for a month, we noticed just how loud the engine noise is. You literally end up shouting to speak in the car, and all the diesels are like that (my mum has one too, petrols are damn near silent in comparison). Mini cheaped out of sound deadening (i guess to cut costs) but the diesel lump in it is fairly loud at idle too (borderline tractorish). This was very apparent when my friend pulled up outside mine in a V6 3 litre VW Tourag and i could barely hear his engine over mine. Surprisingly it's the same engine in the mini as was in our old 118d. Who knows what they did to make it worse.
Next the fuel economy, it's terrible for a diesel. I've owned diesel cars for years from different makes (see previous blog post) and anything less than 40mpg is crap in my book. We get average on the motorway 35mpg. The claimed mpg isn't much better at 38mpg (I never checked the All4 models before buying as I just assumed all BMW/mini diesels would be good and the non-all4 was 47mpg, I guess they had to cut cost somewhere right?).
My mum has same car with same engine but no All4 and get around 47mpg driving around town. I'm convinced the ALL4 system added weight is to blame, and has little benefit. Official figure has the SD ALL4 auto version at 10mpg less than without ALL4.
There are no reported faults with the car and tyre pressure are checked regularly.
Other than this, it's just annoying things like window switch placement, centre speedo and an annoying intermittent low battery alarm (which was present since we bought, and only went away after running the car with now A/C or other accessories for a long journey). I suppose this is the problem of owning and enjoying BMW or similar level cars and buying lesser cars like the mini (I remember my wife saying to me 2 weeks after we got the car "for my next car can we get a BMW again, people respect you on the road more and give you way" To which i replied "you've only just got the mini")
Bonus fact: The rear bumper is a right pain to get off. I found this out recently a my sister bashed one of the parking sensors in. So many perishable clips and hidden retainers. I ended up somehow just wedging my hand between the narrow gap between the bumper and reinforcer and pushing back in placed. These are only held in place with double sided tape (cheapskates)
The main reason we'd need to change was a lack of space for 2 kids and there stuff. but what to get?
My wife does not like big cars (I swear she thinks every car that's not hers is big lol). but despite this we need a bigger car.
I wanted to get an F25 X3, good size, good engine, good mpg. The prices however not so good. especially when compared to the E70 X5 of similar year. For a couple grand less, you could get a slightly older 7 seat M-sport 40d. Arguably better value for money (but still expensive). But it would be a battle to convince Mrs P to drive something that big.
I considered a VW Tourag (did not like the way it drove), a Porsche Cayenne (Price, just price) and several saloons & estates - mainly BMW Audi and Jaguar (Mrs P not keen on estates or Jags, saloon didn't offer enough boot space).
I even tried to convince her that if we got the X5, i'd get the Z4 as a fun car for whomever doesn't have the kids (didn't work).
This is where trying to be somewhat practical with my car choice and smarter with the money came in. Whatever I got would have to do double duty temporarily due to crap share price (I have investments I'd use to pay for X5 - thanks Brexit).
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