Mini Countryman Cooper

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 car, which feels decidedly German, or at the very least bordering on it.

For a car 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 car.

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

<source> carmagazine.co.uk

An unexciting exterior:Countryman

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 – he got a great car for £12k – 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 car 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 car, 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 cars.

As for the rest, I generally slip by unnoticed in this curious looking vehicle due to the Royal Grey metallic paint (£385 – and not the most exciting colour on offer) and the matching roof (black or white are no-cost options our car doesn’t have). Ditto for the wheels – 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...
<source>  carmagazine.co.uk

Breaking the Countryman duck

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 car is 4097mm long – on a par with your typical supermini – so its boot is just 350 litres. Which makes life difficult for photographer 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 – 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.

<source> carmagazine.co.uk