3rd Gen F56 Cooper S Most liked posts in thread: My thoughts on the F56

A note on the sales figures that have been quoted above: the 2015 sales "increases" that MINI highlights are expressed as percentages year-over-year. the 2014 sales numbers were poor because of long-in-the-tooth products and delays in new model introductions (they sold about 13k fewer cars than in 2013 in the US), so MINI has been able to show an increase for 2015. Total annual car sales for 2015 will be above flat, but not remarkable, and less than 2013. That's why I said that the next 12 months will be telling.

 

"But there's still a significant chunk of core owners who LOVE the brand, love the cars, and will continue to buy MINI as long as it doesn't stray too far. And it ultimately hasn't, yet."
YET!

 

Some of the hardcore do snap up the R53's, but many more move on to an entirely new brand rather than move on to the next Gen MINI. It's a relatively small number from a sales standpoint, but a relatively huge hit if you look at those who have left from a performance enthusiast standpoint...

 

I agree with most of what you say, until you lump the R56 in with the F56. I am a long time sports/muscle car owner and find myself picking the Mini over my Vette most of the time. As far as I'm concerned one of the best rides I've ever taken was when I took my LT4 Vette with 400+HP and the Z51 suspension to the Dragon. Taking my Mini there for MOTD '14 was a very close second though. IMO the R56, with a few tweaks, is a great little sports car. And face it, how many of you R53 owners are running bone stock cars? I'm in the process of adding a few more mods to the Mini that I hope will make it an even funner car! Or should that be more better fun car? I'm a big fan of the R53 myself, but when I bought my Mini I only thought the purchase out for about 2 seconds. After my Mom's funeral my baby sister offhandedly mentioned she needed to get rid of her Mini for a bigger car to haul her Grandson around and I immediately said "I'll take it!". She ordered the car herself and got all the good options including LSD. I'm glad it happened like that because if I had researched the car I wouldn't have touched it with a ten foot pole and I'd be putting a lot more miles on the Vette,and to be honest, it's getting harder and harder to get in and out of the Vette. Getting old is inconvenient at times. :biggrin5::biggrin5:
I checked out a new F56 and was not impressed. I did like the seats though.

 

You forgot to include my next paragraph:

 

A ton of us mod the R53--and that's another reason why so many of the initial hardcore faithful left after the R53--the newer generation MINIs are substantially more difficult to mod from a performance standpoint. The R53 aftermarket got going in a hurry and continues to grow, the R56 took much longer to develop, and many of the vendors gave up on it altogether, or at least waited a significant amount of time to work with it. Time and again, I talked to tuners and aftermarket vendors when the R56 came out, and the refrain was the same--it wasn't worth the effort to devote a ton of time on it. So while the R56 mods have come in fits and starts, it's nowhere near what happened with the R53, it's harder to mod, and there isn't as much interest. I suspect the F56 will follow in those R56 footsteps in this regard.

 

Cars as a whole aren't getting any easier to modify, FWIW, and many brands/manufacturers are trying to prevent owners from working on their cars at all.

 

Oh I do like the R56. Have owned two of them (WC50 Edition and a GP2) and currently own an R55. It just wasn't love at first drive like the R53 was, and took a little longer to appreciate how good they are.

Also had 2 Vettes many years ago. A C3 L82 and a C4 with Z51. Fun cars.

 

No. It's not. Unless it takes less than 10 seconds nowadays.

 

:lol:

Yeah, truth.

A question I get often is, "Dipstick? What's that?"

And thus, the real reason why the N14 cars had such a bad reputation. Hard on oil, long OCIs, and owners that never checked the oil.

 

Hell no.

10k/1 year max.

 

Yeah well it took us a little time to find something as enjoyable to make fun of as bytetronic and sprintex.

 

Atta boy.......alienate another segment of this forum.....:mtrn:

 

Have you measured the pressure drop across the filter or filter content after 10,000 miles?

 

BTW.... You qualify for the full custom club... You DID swap roofs on your chassis....

 

Cool, send me a sticker!

 

Here we go again.....

 

I'm really tempted to sell the Danger and pick up a F56 Justa as a daily driver.

Maybe after the new year.