2010 Mini Cooper S Review

It's so cute, so why does Molly Wood hate the 2010 Mini Cooper S?

2010 Mini Cooper S Review The 2010 Mini Cooper S. It's classically Mini adorable. It makes me feel hot driving it. It's fast. It has BMW handling. So, why do I hate it so much? I'm Molly Wood. Let's get inside and check the tech. See? The problem with the Mini is that it's like an HGTV makeover. It's over designed. You've got your classic Mini giant dial in the center here. And because they've taken up so much space making it look quirky and adorable, it's almost impossible to figure out how to do anything. You've got this sort of system of buttons to press and a dial to turn and a dial to press. Now, if you want to play a funny joke on someone, get in this car before they've ever seen it and turn the volume all the way down on the radio and then see if they can figure out how to get sound to come out of the speakers. That one happened to me. Because the thing is, you've got this dial here for adjusting all kinds of things related to the radio but then the volume is this almost hidden knob down here. The whole thing just gets annoying. Now down here, you’ve got the cute little toggle switches that let you operate the window, change some of the lighting, power lock your doors. You’ve also got an auxiliary jack hidden way under here and then an optional USB port that lets you plug in the iPod connector. Now, our car came equipped with Bluetooth hands free, which is a nice touch and we also had the six-speed hybrid automatic transmission. Now, there is a sport button here which I found really reduced to the turbo lag. That’s probably one you’re going to want to enable pretty often. Now, there all kinds of other upgrade options on this car including HD radio, a smartphone charger, the iPod USB connector and a Harman Kardon stereo system which -- trust me, you’re going to want because the base audio in this car is not great. Now, all annoying towards the side, there is one thing the Mini is perfect for, city parking. Now, as far as the Mini is kind of mini miss goes, I’m about a six-footer, so if anybody is going to feel cramped in this car, it’s me. And I really don’t. You’re not ever going to hold more than two people at a time and not very much stuff. Luckily, you can configure this thing like crazy. For $2,000.00, you can add a DVD-based navigation system that takes up this space here and I kind of like that because it makes this big dial potentially useful. Or for just $400.00, you can upgrade to a Garmin-based DVD nav system. The DVD one does offer live traffic and voice control, so you get a little extra there but the Garmin is a much cheaper choice. Under the hood, the Mini is powered by a 1.4 liter turbocharged 4-cylinder. It makes 172 horsepower and the 6-speed Steptronic transmission definitely suffers a little bit of turbo lag. Driving the Mini Cooper S is not unlike riding in a horse and buggy. The ride in car speak is stiff. It's sporty. It's got a lot of road feel. What that really means is that it's so rough and loud and unforgiving that when you drive over a pothole, you feel like you've broke the car. It's much better on the freeway or at higher speeds but since this is such a good little city car, it turns out that it's the kind of fun that gets kind of annoying after a day or two. Steering is a little on the heavy side. You really have to drive this car. You're not just going nudge it into the next lane. But it is very responsive. And the car size and maneuverability make it kind of a possible not to zip in and out of traffic like your recreating scenes from Italian job. From the $23,000.00 base, you can add not just all the different a la carte tech options but body kits, decals, different roof colors and all kinds of packages. Our tested Mini had a $500.00 hot chocolate paint job plus the $4,500.00 Mayfair package that gave our test car the toffee interior, fog lights, chrome and alloy wheels. All told, our test car came in at $30,250.00. Gas mileage is estimated at 24/32 which you'll only get if you stay out of sport mode. Bottom line on the Mini, still annoying but it's cute enough that it's hard to keep hating it. Have fun, hold on to your hat and go find yourself a small parking spot. Now, all fussiness aside, there is one thing the Mini is great at and that is city parking.