What's BMW to do?

amen Matt. I've had the car since late May and I'm still getting 100% used to the COMAND interface. It's mostly intuitive but that leaves a lot that's not. The system in our Infiniti is far superior.

I'm a long-term believer that the Japanese are better at ergonomics of the user-interface. The Germans try to make things oversimplified which leads to them being overly complex. Japanese like what I'll call at 'Tokyo at night' :lol:

I LOVED the handling of the performance of the M3 with DCT. The manual, less so. It was overpriced and a bit cramped for me and the dealer was overly aggressive in trying to sell me the car, a huge turn off. Same dealer I had that had two mostly painless MINI transactions, so the 'hard sell' wasn't received well. The Audi and M-B dealers were more what I expected for a 'premium' dealer relative to the sale process.

 

Smack is BMW did build a smaller lighter car much in the vain of the BMW 2002, it's called a Mini... But as we the consumers keep demanding more and more the Mini is going down the same path in price and add ons. The original BMW 2002 was by no means a horsepower monster but had the driving dynamics that were very appealing to drive and was actually more than the sum of it's parts. My well equipped but not loaded S was $26,000.00 and a JCW was about 32. Four short years later a similar S will be the price of the JCW and a new JCW will be scaring 40 and even a lot more if you start checking all the option boxes. For the price I thought it was a great value for the performance. After spending a few more bucks on it, it's even a better value, but to walk in today and plunk down 40 plus large to get about the same performance I have now.....not so sure.......


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Talking sticker prices, in 06 there wasn't much wiggle room. The economy was rolling and Mini couldn't build them fast enough, you went on a lot and you were lucky to see 2 or 3 new Minis sitting there and chances were, they were sold. Drove by the same dealer lot just the other day and there were 75 new Minis for sale and big banners offering incentives stuck all over them.......

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I got $500 off my '06 plus a free center console. I worked them hard for that. Wonder what sort of deals these days.

 

just ran a price on my insurance company's buying service for a well optioned JCW Coupe. $2k off, no hassle. Not bad I guess....about par with other similar premium marks.

 

Our launch edition Clubman came with all kinds of add on stuff, leather, premium, cold weather, xenons, 17" wheels, tinted windows, clear bra, but no MFSW:confused5::rolleyes5:. But the dealer installed one for nothing, and threw in rubber mats. We paid almost 6K under sticker price at the time.

Mark

 

For the sake of the conversation what was the final price they quoted after the discount?

PS: They did give me $300.00 in dealer cash good for accessories and some rubber floor mats.... LOL

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$30k. Sunroof, cold weather, premium.....I randomly selected a couple of options and got $33k MSRP and $30700 sales price. From what I've seen with BMW pricing using the same service, the amount of the discount goes up by options being added (not just a flat $2k off for example).

The 650i I was looking at was $15k off to start, up to $19k off well optioned. I got $8k off my M-B (dealer wasn't happy it b/c its a hard car to get and they had one on the lot but there was a corporate promo with M-B USA so they had to honor the price).

 

Actually, as a fairly recent entrant to Mini ownership, I'd say many of your points apply to Mini just as well as to the rest of BMW. Having learnt to drive on classic Minis [mumble, mumble] years ago and having had a few of the iconic 'hot hatches' in between, bloated over-specced and uninvolving are all things I would tend to say about my R57.

Some will want to tell me that this is because it's a justacooper, but I've always found that the 'sweetest' model in any range is never the top one - if a justa isn't a delight, then adding more power isn't likely to improve it (just making bigger test numbers doesn't impress or please me).

It certainly is an effective car, it works, it grips - it just isn't a pleasure like a classic Mini or some of those hatches you Merkans never got (Peugeot 205GTI, for example). I'm hoping it is a good choice for a convertible to own for a good few years - not something that I would be in a hurry to say about its French competitor convertibles. It's just rather obvious that no-one French or Italian worked on the chassis. There's no control that I would say feels like playing a musical instrument - most feel like playing a computer game.

It's a strange that BMW should pick on 'joy' as a campaign as that is precisely what I find the Mini lacks - and indeed any other BMW I've driven lately. But then I think it's equally true about lots of cars - one recent British test compared a modern GM saloon/sedan to its equivalent 30 years ago and 'uninvolving' was a word that came up over and over. For family transport that seems fair, but for an enthusiast's car?

Andrew

 

Well, going back to the OP's question.....what should BMW do, given where they are and the current market/safety climate? Seems to me they're in one of them rock/hard place deals.....



If a MINI has to weight 2900lbs (my low spec Clubman S weighed at the track two weeks ago was 2885lbs, without me in it) , what would a lite spec 2002 replacement be? Add back a 120hp motor for fuel economy and you have at best "Justa" performance in a BMW, not palatable in this day and age, I'd say.

Plus too and also, the new Hyundai Sonata 4 cyl makes 275hp on 2.0L (turbocharged) and is EPA rated at 34 mpg (IIRC) with an automatic, the same as my Clubby!

Bar raising, indeed......

 

Another thought;

BMW started sliding about the same time they stopped being serious contenders in motorsports. Wonder which one happened first?

Hmmm...