By the CAR road test team
Long Term Tests
16 June 2011 12:43
Mini Countryman build quality ahoy! 16 June 2011
Build quality is a term beloved of automotive journalists. The problem is it's a broad term, easily applied to everything from the thunk of a German door shutting to the flimsiness of a French front wing. There you go - I've gone and done it again. Fallen into the usual stereotyping of nationalities' automotive products.
Which brings me to my Mini Countryman which, despite the Mini customers' love of Union Jacks, is built in Austria. The German BMW genes show through strongly in the auto, which feels decidedly German, or at the very least bordering on it.
For a auto that starts at £16,000 the Countryman is a strikingly well designed and bolted together product. If you start poking around the cabin you will find weaker, cheaper bits here and there, but the overall impression and perception is high grade. The seats wouldn't look out of place in a £50k auto.
Everything works, nothing squeaks, nothing rattles and nothing gives you cause to doubt that's the way it will remain. Outside it's much the same story. The slabs of wheelarch plastics beloved of Mini designers are always a weak point. My rear wheelarch has already popped slightly out of place and after a few years this material fades, needing liberal applications of Back-to-black to retard the ageing process.
I know this because I've already owned my own Mini Cooper S for a few years. More noticeable on our Countryman are the larger panel gaps around the bonnet and headlights, but these seem to be a necessity of the ambitious design rather than any build fault.
Going back to my initial stereotypes, I have to admit to being rather impressed with the interior materials and finish on similarly sized Peugeots and Renaults recently. But oh those flimsy plastic front wings! The French could still learn a thing or two from the Germans, it seems.
By Mark Fagelson
Sat-nav success â€" 16 May 2011
Anyone who drives a lot inevitably has a love/hate relationship with sat-navs. Systems vary wildly in their design and usability; if you spend your working day jumping from auto to auto then it can be preferable to keep your TomTom close at hand rather than try and get to grips with yet another unfamiliar interface.
The Mini’s system is among the best on offer. The screen sits inside the large central speedo dial and has something of a Bond gadget look to it, perhaps because the tech is slightly at odds with the retro switches and dials. Inputting your destination is achieved using the tiny joystick down behind the gearstick. Imagine BMW's iDrive condensed into the lid of a biro. It functions fine and also looks after the stereo and auto settings.
It says something about the nav’s clarity and usability that I have never felt the need to reach for my old friend TomTom even when venturing to the centre of Paris on a recent shoot. The display is big enough to use as a split screen, it reroutes quickly if you take wrong turn or choose to ignore a direction and it accepts postcodes without fuss.
I have no idea why some brands seem to struggle with satellite navigation, but Mini has got it spot on and for the time being the TomTom is gathering dust.
Downsides? It's £995!
By Mark Fagelson
Nice on the inside â€" 27 April 2011
The ‘on the road’ price for a Mini Cooper D ALL4 Countryman such as my long-term test auto is £19,875. But I’m sure nobody ever bought a Mini without adding options and ours has £6555 of extra kit, most of it lavished on the insides.
This is far and away my favourite part of the Countryman. Here I warm my cheeks on heated seats (£250), defog my heated windscreen (£345), call up the sat-nav (£995) by using the trick voice control system (£250) and admire my little world of cream leather (£675 to complete the part-leather that comes with the £2490 Chili pack), tasteful trimmings of chrome (£90) and piano black door trims (a no cost option, this one).
As for that Chili pack, beyond the half-leather there’s a wealth of goodies including automatic air con, a better stereo system, inch bigger alloys (now 17s), sports front seats and steering wheel controls. It also adds in some basics you might be expecting to get as standard such as front foglights, floormats, a trip computer and passenger seat height adjustment.
The overall result of our options list bounty is a unique cabin that’s packed to the rafters with luxury, refinement and gadgets. The boxes ticked on the inside more than compensate for an exterior lacking in that Mini brand of style and individuality.
By Mark Fagelson
An unexciting exterior â€" 13 April 2011
Has a Mini ever left the factory with no options or upgrades? Parked down my street is a rare example of a bog standard Mini One: solid red paint with black plastic wing mirrors and steel wheels. The owner is a wise man â€" he got a great auto for £12k â€" but it goes against the whole brand ethos. Picking your bells and whistles is a part of the Mini experience.
Alas I missed out on this part of the process: a bod at BMW head office specified my Countryman’s options so the auto arrived ASAP. Low key, if not inexpensive, seems to be the order of the day when it comes to the spec. You can have a 2wd Countryman, but ours uses the ALL4 intelligent four-wheel drive system. This ups the cost by a little over £1000 and downs the official mpg figure by a little over 10%.
Our auto, with its 110hp diesel engine, sits in the middle of the oil burning Countryman range, with an underpowered 89bhp base model below it, and the hot new 141bhp Cooper SD topping the range while still returning the same economy figures as the slower autos.
As for the rest, I generally slip by unnoticed in this curious looking vehicle due to the Royal Grey metallic paint (£385 â€" and not the most exciting colour on offer) and the matching roof (black or white are no-cost options our auto doesn’t have). Ditto for the wheels â€" we have boggo silver. We do have white indicator lenses for £70, but have you noticed them?
Other exterior options fitted such as xenon headlights (£590) and folding, dimming wing mirrors (£215) add function if not flair. It’s all just a bit too grown up for a Mini. Is it possible to retro fit a Union Jack roof and wing mirrors, big black wheels and some body stripes?
Next, the leather-lavished interior...
By Mark Fagelson
Breaking the Countryman duck â€" 21 March 2011
Hadn't driven the Countryman before, so arranged a swap with keeper Mark Fagelson. It's a curious beast: all standing on tiptoes, familiar Mini motifs stretched into alien shapes, not all of them pleasant. I tried to cast aside much of the hate campaign, I really did. But it was still difficult to approach the Countryman with total neutrality.
Part of the problem lies in the curious package on offer. This auto is 4097mm long â€" on a par with your typical supermini â€" so its boot is just 350 litres. Which makes life difficult for picturegrapher Fagelson with his myriad boxes, rigs, bags and lengths of scaffolding. They call it the first four-seater Mini, and they're right: space is plentiful in the back seats, but the flipside is that the boot is slightly pathetic. Wouldn't you just buy a Golf estate or Panda 4x4, depending on your priorities of passengering and mud-slinging?
CAR’s long-term test Mini Countryman is an All4 equipped diesel Cooper and seems over-specced with 4wd. The basic FWD Mini hatches only struggle for traction in JCW form, so why should this chunky derv model need all-corner drive? Marketing waffle, I suspect (unless you live in hilly/snowy climes, accepted).
Still, you could level much of the above at the Mini 4x4's competitors. I drove CAR's Skoda Yeti more than most and came to love it. How so? The 300-litre boot felt more accommodating despite the figures and the Skoda's cabin was more premium too â€" I'm increasingly finding the Countryman's cockpit places cool over can-do. It's an ergonomic mess: you never look at the massive central speedo, whose ‘epicyclic’ needle helpfully obscures your speed and minor buttons are scattered everywhere.
The Countryman's not a complete disaster zone. Once you set off, you quickly realise they've kept the Mini zest intact. The steering is pointy and keen, making the Countryman an athletic partner, and while the ride is fidgety on urban bumps, it settles down nicely at higher speeds when you've snuck that trad Mini gearbox up to sixth. I suspect in petrol guise, or wanton Cooper S spec, the Countryman would drive phenomenally, whereas the diesel feels sporty but never quite delivers the thrills suggested by the chassis.
It's a curious beast, our Countryman. Wannabe hot hatch, yet with a 1.6 diesel that struggles to feel pacey with all that extra heft. The more practical Mini whose boot will struggle to match the load capacity of many small estates. And a poser's interior where the mask is just beginning to slip. I love most of the new Mini generation , but reckon the Countryman might not have quite hit the spot.
By Tim Pollard
Hello to our new Mini Countryman â€" 9 March 2011
hen my new long-term test auto turned up on the Fagelson household’s doorstep I had yet to see a Mini Countryman at close quarters. Yes, I’d viewed the early press shots with curiosity, and even briefly caught sight of one on the road, but I really didn’t know what to expect. In picturegraphs it's difficult to judge the scale of the thing: would it be big and high like a Freelander, or small and dinky like a Panda 4x4?
The reality was somewhere in between. Certainly it is more auto-like than I had imagined, but park it next to a regular Mini and it appears far more brutish and pumped-up than its sibling. The styling is odd, with so many design cues lifted the Mk2 hatch that it’s difficult to judge the design on its own terms. I fear it may always just look like a bigger, uglier Mini, but then we all thought the same of BMW’s Mk2 Mini…
To make way for the Countryman we’ve sold our much-loved Golf GTI. The Mini is much the same size as the dearly departed VW, and the Countryman range is priced similarly to the Golf’s too. Expensive price tags will nothing new to current Mini owners, but this is the first grown-up Mini, a Golf rival for people in need of four doors and a boot. With the promise of Golf practicality, BMW build quality, Mini coolness, what’s not to like?
I’ll be putting all of that to the test. Besides the GTI, in the past I’ve also owned a BMW Mini in Mk1 Cooper S guise, so know all about the style and chic that the brand can offer. And beyond that, with a family and my life as a picturegrapher, the Countryman’s load-lugging ability will be tested daily.
I don’t want to judge it too soon, but one thing’s for sure: it’s a strange beast, neither butch SUV nor clever MPV but undeniably different and unique. The Mini qualities of style and character are present and correct, but will the substance of the package leave me wanting my Golf back?
We’ll find out over the next six months or so, and in the next report I’ll be digesting the spec of my Countryman. Made the plunge and already bought one? Click ‘Add your comment’ below and let me know what engine, colour and options you’ve gone for.
By Mark Fagelson
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