I love my mini!!!!!! (lease, mattress, Home Depot)

[SteelCityRising]

MOOO!!! (Just wanted to break the tension).

[pegfer]

Originally Posted by njkate

Haha good one Mary..tuna can
I call them a pregnant roller skate..lol

A friend who lives in Colorado has one..she loves it but has to change tires for winter time....until most down size I don't think I will....gas mileage or not I feel a bit more secure in my Gand Cherokee..might be a false sense of security but I wouldn't want to be hit by a suv in that Mini

A false sense indeed... Just go to
for the jeep
http://www.iihs.org/ratings/ratingsbyseries.aspx?id=341

for the mini

http://www.iihs.org/ratings/ratingsbyseries.aspx?id=303

While the Jeep is getting better since its "Marginal" front impact ratings of pre 2005 models the mini has always had a "Good" rating

Then of course there is that rollover rating of 3 stars for the Jeep and 5 for the mini
Note also: in the side crash the head injury to both crash test dummies but the mini didn't have the side curtains and the Jeep did.
Also here in NJ my daughter does not need to buy "snow tires" the mini is just fine in the snow.
I will admit it could not compare with the Jeep in deep snow to because of a low clearence problem

[marye711]

refresh your memory Kate???

[block911]

Enjoy being crammed in like a can of tuna and I hope you don't get hit by a SUV

[marye711]

Originally Posted by block911

Enjoy being crammed in like a can of tuna and I hope you don't get hit by a SUV

See I originally called it a tuna can also........way to scarey for me to drive.......

[njkate]

Originally Posted by marye711

refresh your memory Kate???

Yeah but I've seen a couple of really cute ones lately
There is this really dark blue convertabile and the rag top looks like denim

My issue is my commute..when gas was high that jeep was killing my wallet

[block911]

Originally Posted by BobKovacs

I saw a crash test where they tested the Smart car by ramming it head-on into a concrete barrier at about 45 mph. They also did the same test with a Ford Fiesta or something along those lines. The Smart car definitely held up better in the crash (the Fiesta got utterly destroyed), but as the commentator on the video said "the Smart car definitely survived the crash better than the Fiesta, but the same can't be said of the occupants. I guess if you're willing to consider 'different degrees of dead' they fared better, but in my view, they're still dead either way".

I saw a car cross a red light and clipped the rear end of an old 4 cyl nissan maxima (1990s) at full speed and the car started spinning like a top twice till it came to stand still. A cooper or smart car would of spun and gone flying into another car or ripped in half or the impact would of hit the passenger rather than the back trunk. An SUV would of more likely made a half turn and stopped. There is more to accidents then front end collisions, Even high winds would push a smart car or mini all over the road but a suv will stay put as well as most 6 cylinder cars. Also in crazy traffic nobody is going to give a smart car/mini the right of way as instead they will be cut off left and right. While a SUV people will move out of your way as you can run them over.

I have an is 300 that I drive to my wife's parents house in NYC and people are cutting me off left and right because I have a small car and also that my car is 30k and the other drivers know I won't hit them. We also have a Ford escape and nobody cuts us off that includes trucks.

Its all about who has the bigger stick, now if they can make the stick fuel efficient ala Ford Escape hybrid and we have a winner at 30 mpg. Unfortuneately I used the online calculator and I would need to own my car for 9.5 years to cover the extra cost of a hybrid ford escape compared to a gasoline powered one. And more than likely the battery would fail by then which costs another 5k so owning a hybrid ford escape doesn't make sense just yet.


If you live out in the burbs with no highway driving than a small car is fine but not on the mean streets of nyc, turnpike , gardenstate parkway, route 1, 95 etc.




Oh and the kicker to my original story was the driver that hit the other car sped off, this was in downtown newark in front of the hall of records building on West Market and MLK blvd at 5:30 pm with a ton of people watching.

[njkate]

Hey Marilyn..yoohoo you started this thread..how did your Mini do last winter????

[Ninjahedge]

Necro-bump.....


I think there are problems with buying smaller vehicles, but that comes mainly from people buying huge vehicles with no standard bumper height (they forced tractor trailers to have a set bumper height after many cars would rear-end them and end up shearing off their hoods/rooves as they went UNDER the back of the trailer).

The thnig that is betetr about sme of teh smaller vehicles are their passenger compartments. Yess, a smaller car can get knocked around quite a bit, but a more compact frame can also be designed more like a race car, complets with roll cage, than a large open vehicle can (the longer the beam has to span, the easier it is to bend and crush the compartment).

So long as this was resurrected, I can say that I kind of like the Mini, but I do not like a few things.

First is that teh European version had a continuous transmission. What is that? It did not have gears, but a conical drive belt mechanism that allowed it to keep the same RPM and accelerate at its peak power level rather than revving through one gear after another.

People did not like that feel, although it offered better milage and faster acceleration (0-60 times, etc). SO the first ones had fake gears programmed into the continuous transmission to make people FEEL like it was a geared trannie. I do not know if they still do this.

Second, BMW bought them. The only thing that means is $$. Pure name brand. Prices jumped and this became ore of a toy than a practical transport.

But it still is a very tight vehicle. Will it fit a kid? Probably, but I think you WILL run into space problems. Thnigs is, my sister, with a Nissan Titan (sheesh!) still runs into space problems, so it isn't the size of the vehicle sometimes, but what you FEEL is necessary to pack with you when going here or there.

Driving around in my old MX6 with a 9 month old in the back, I can see the merit in getting a car with slightly more back seat space, but that is all up to you.

And if you live in the city, having a smaller vehicle may be a smarter thing to have (parking).


As for teh Smart Car, I never understood why they had to make those things so dumpy looking. They couldn't make it abit more sporty? Like a cross between a Golf Cart and a Formula 1 Racer rather than a Golf Cart and another Golf Cart?

Meh. Geeks are not the only ones that like efficiency you know!!! :P

[njkate]

Nah no kids to worry about. Hubbie doesn't even like my Grand Cherokee, says it's to small so whenever we go out together it's his Silverado, so my next car he isn't even in the equasion
His commute is only 10 miles against traffic so gas $$ last years didn't hurt him too much