I actually like these one-day swaps for the opportunity to try out a car on more than a fixed loop within spitting distance of the dealer. It's not about unwinding the thing on the freeway or straightening a curvy mountain road. I enjoy the subtle nuances of starting the engine after a cold night and seeing how long it takes to warm up. How does it handle under the 90% driving style that doesn't resemble a test drive? How's that turbo lag when I'm stuck in stop-and-go traffic in town? With what name will my 6-year-old christen it?*
Without rehashing the interior changes from my last evaluation, I tallied a few notes about the differences in pre-'07 vs. post '07 S models (to wit, Supercharger vs. Turbo).
THE BAD
The turbo lag is there. Start softly and it audibly winds up, start a little more aggressively and it jerks on. It kicks in at lower speeds than the turbos of yesteryear, but every time I had to get moving from a standstill I could feel it.
The fuel gauge still drives me nuts. Why, oh why did they use a digital display that is less accurate than the analog? As the candy corns disappear, there is no correlation to how much fuel is left in the tank. For this I had to look at the computer display which shows the remaining distance on the fuel in the tank. They should have stuck with the remaining distance display and dropped the candy-corn gauge altogether.
The aforementioned computer display is really ugly. I really didn't like looking at it. It's not polished; it's not anti-aliased; it's not symmetrical. It doesn't look MINI. It's certainly no deal breaker, but I can't shake the feeling that the designers at MINI didn't design it. More likely, some VP got a really good deal on a bunch of them from a guy he knows.
THE GOOD
It's quick: noticeably faster than my supercharged example. It feels faster (torquier) and is just plain quicker. Passing speeds are excellent as the turbo spools and then jumps, even at freeway speeds. It's really, really fun to drive at 30 or 60 miles-per-hour and then accelerate 20 mph faster.
It likes to go fast. At 75 mph, it seemed really eager to jump up another 5 or 10. The supercharged version isn't sluggish at these speeds, but the turbo was clearly communicating that it wanted to go faster. I found myself driving at average faster speeds with the same amount of feedback; it just feels lighter.
The Sport mode works. I'm guessing it either keeps the turbo running or dials it in sooner. When I drove with Sport mode on, the response was quicker and it felt much more like the go-kart I expected. It's noisier this way, but I didn't press the Sport button in order to take a nap.
The gas mileage is better than the supercharged version. I observed an average of 29.7 over 85 miles with all sorts of driving. I'm not going to expound that last statement, suffice it to say that I expect 29.7 would be the worst mileage I'd have if this were my daily-driver.
The steering feels tighter. This could be due to the newness, but I doubt it. My MCS feels plenty tight; the '08 felt just a little stiffer.
THE VERDICT
It's an excellent car. I do love the MINI. After spending a day with this one, though, I still wish they'd kept the simplicity and arrangement of the prior version. I can't imagine an S lasting as long if I had to run it in Sport mode all the time, which is the only time this car felt superior to mine.
*She named this one "Olivia."
