The Tucker Stories

About a month ago, I picked up Maggie, Too, my 2010 MINI Cooper S John Cooper Works and figured it was time to share my thoughts on this new, wee beastie.

First things first:  Maggie was my gift to myself for serving 20 years of the hard Federal Prison sentence known as the US Army.  Maggie, Too is my mid-life crisis car.  Maggie, Too is not a replacement for Maggie but the next step beyond.

Currently, Maggie, Too has 2229 miles on her.  Maggie had 70,720 miles on her over 35.67 months, which comes out to 1982.8 miles/month, so I’m on track for the ~2k mi/mo.

Some of the things that I really do like about this car are the zoominess of her, the go-cart drive, the hair-on-fire quickness.  Yes, I still take the roundabouts at >50kph and come out faster still!  Another favorite are the heated seats!  Maggie didn’t have these and, frankly, I thought they were an old person’s extravagance.  I mean, I was raised in Houston and have lived in the south most of my life.  Snow?!?  What nonsense is this?  But I do like to ride with the roof back and windows down, so these heated seats are EXCELLENT for that, especially when there is snow!!  I also like the new black interior.  Maggie had a light gray interior color above the dashline with a black door panels accented with the red and the control stalks were also gray.  Maggie, Too is completely black.  Roof, pillars, doors, controls.  Anthracite black and looks very “tough”.  Another new favorite on Maggie, Too is the Hold On Hill feature.  This is where the ABS detects that the car is on a slope and will hold the brakes for up to 2 seconds whilst releasing the clutch.  Thus, if you’re stopped at a light on a hill, the car won’t move as you let out the clutch to move off.  I’ve gotta tell you, I can remember my mother using the e-brake to hold the car in San Francisco, so this is a nice feature.

The first thing that I absolutely HATE on the 2010 Cooper S is the same thing I hated on my 2006 Cooper S, the #$%^&* sun visor!!  Obviously, nobody at the MINI mothership has listened to us and even attempted to fix this garbage!  The sun visor is a flap of plasticine material that has more aesthetic value that effective sun blocking.  For crying out loud, the left side of the driver’s visor doesn’t even visually overlap with the roof line.  There is, no kidding, a gap in the left corner that perfectly fits the sun!!  ERRRR!!!  Also, I splurged for the iPod/Bluetooth integration.  For reasons completely unimaginable, MINI decided that the iPod controls should be completely retro.  Like 1968 AM radio retro!!  To make any selections, you have to scroll through each listing, whether its a song list, play list or whatever, only two lines at a time!!  There is no “slosh” to the scroll nor any shortcut buttons like what you find on an old AM radio.  Thus, if you wish to hear Legs by ZZ Top, expect to take about a minute to scroll all the way down there!  Another dislike is the new speedo does not have the corresponding kilometer markings.  Dunno why they did that and I didn’t realize how much I actually did use the K’s on the speedo.  If nothing else, I’d use it as a quite converter for distances.  To not have it is a bit of a let down.  Finally, the greatest disappointment with Maggie, Too is the loss of the curviness when compared to Maggie.  There was a definite swoop between the headlights and the top of the bonnet that is not there anymore with the 2010 model.  This is a result of the new European pedestrian safety requirements and, unfortunately, takes away some of the appeal of the car making it blander, more main stream.  Unfortunate.

With all of that, I really do like this new, wee beastie.  The loud button is really loud and she still has the driveabilityness that makes MINIs so fun.  Once the weather clears up and the ‘Ring opens, I do plan on running several laps testing out my new car and new camera.

Cheers!!

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 31st, 2009 at 12:28 pm and is filed under JCW, MINI Cooper, Maggie. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.