When you’re down this way again Tim, might be good to meet up again at the Ace for a coffee? Wouldn’t mind a snoop  2015 HSE SDV6 Scotia Grey, ebony / lunar, colour coded, deployable steps, TV, sliding pano and a few other bits. Now gone
2018 Velar R-Dynamic HSE sdv6 silicon silver

I’ll let you know when i’m heading back south again, probably in late October - the weather will decide whether I drive south or let LNER take the strain as I now have an hourly High Speed rail service from my local station to Kings X in 4.5 hours 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Tim in Scotland wrote:

Yesterday I did a run from home to Leith in Edinburgh (no not to see the Royal Yacht but to visit friends who have a flat that has stunning views over Leith Docks, the River Forth and The Royal Yacht.)

The journey involves 17 miles of fast A road driving to the M9 motorway to join at J10 then motorway for 36 miles to J1 Newbridge then cut and thrust city driving on pretty good A roads, the first 3 miles of the mortorway are on a relatively steep incline. Now i’ve got some of the permutations of the drive modes sussed out I left the house in electric mode, leaving the village where I live I switched over to run in Save+Green mode that runs in petrol but also deadens the throttle, makes the car coast when it doesn’t need power and will recuperate (Mini speak for regenerate) energy in freewheel mode. As I switched over to Save mode I reset the trip MPG meter. Having left home with 98% battery charge there wasn’t much regen required to top off the driving battery. I ran with the sunroof in the vent position and the climate control set at 18 to keep the cabin pleasant ( I could set up green mode so that it won’t allow the climate to cool / heat the cabin, but I do like my creature comforts and i’m Not ready for full miser mode of MaxE+Green....... fully electric no petrol back up no a/c mode. Leaving the M9 after a blast on cruise control for 35 miles the mpg meter showed 47mpg - pretty good considering that the petrol engine has only run about 250 miles of the 650 miles racked up so far in total, so it is still tight. Things of note - I pulled out to overtake slower moving traffic and without registering it I was up to 85-90mph with ease - as easily as the RRS SDv6 does it and was surprised that in Green mode it was no slouch on the motorway. So 47mpg on a tight new engine at fast motorway speeds is nothing to whinge about. Also hugely impressive is how smooth and quiet the little 3 cylinder 1.5ltr is and it has bags and bags of torque for a petrol engine, i’m Not joking but this engine makes the SDv6 sound like a rough old tractor (which I know it isn't), there is only any reminder it is running if you really floor the gas pedal and ask it to go to the top of the Rev band which isn’t what an eco -car is really about. Wind noise even with the sun roof opened to the vent position is non-existent, it seems that my initial comments about wind noise from the opening section of the sunroof has cured itself, now there is no noise except a little rattle from the manually moved sun shade in its track. Passing Gogarburn heading into Leith I switched back to electric mode and drove in stop/start rush hour traffic arriving at Leith Docks with just over half the drive battery charge remaining. By the time I left to go home after midnight the temperature outside had dropped from 23 to 13c and the climate control turned the heating on as soon as I started - so it has a PTC heater running off the electrics rather than the engine heat. Out of the city limit I switched back to SaveE+Green modes and set the cruise at 70 for the motorway, I had 1/3rd of the drive battery left - driving north on the M9 there are some long gradual descents and long flat sections, it was nice to watch the drive battery charge state slowly creeping round to the right as the car recovered energy on the down gradients and arriving at J9 I was able to turn off the motorway with >¾’s of the battery Charge again which was enough for me to drive the remaining 17 miles home on the battery and arrive back with the petrol gauge having dropped from 3/4tank to just a whisker under half ( about 9litres of petrol used for the trip) - on the electrical consumption side the Mini Connected app is showing that I am averaging 88.8miles per kWhr total average mpg 43.5 and I recovered 12.4mile/kWhr by regeneration.
Night driving is a breeze too with the LED headlights, they are very powerful on full beam and have a very good beam pattern, so bright that I wanted to dip them for roadsigns........ on dipped beam also a good pattern and plenty of power - I didn’t opt for the auto dipping system on my car - I had them on various RRS’s and Evoques but found them a bit inconsistent in their operation so decided not to bother this time - so far Mini doesn’t offer pixel type headlights, mine are adaptive LED projector type that to look at look like BiXenon projectors.

The “efficiency” meter is showing 4.5/5 stars. I know that doing a really long motorway trip,is not what the car is designed for but it is so quiet and smooth in petrol mode it wouldn’t be a hardship, what would be hard to bear would be having to stop a couple of times to refuel the tiny 36ltr petrol tank. 26miles of electrical range isn’t a lot of use for a long run but I’m Going to give it a try next year when I have a few trips to London coming up and the petrol engine might have loosened up a bit more - 4.5hour Stirling to Kings X 1st class on LNER on the East Coast line though is more appealing than a 10 hour drive, even one made in the RRS!

I was all set up for a demo of the RRS PHEV in June but the demo car was suffering “technical issues”. But i’ll keep you all up to date.

I have made two discoveries in the last 48 hours - I have Automous emergency braking without adaptive cruise control, I didn’t tick that box but for 2018MY AEB is standard on all Minis and that also comes with a city safety system to protect pedestrians as well as standard on the PHEV because it is silent in electric mode. Had I been told I could also have had a system that records dash cam info using the same front cam as AEB and the reversing cam for a rear view. As an option it would have cost £125 extra - probably cheaper than having an after market dash cam fitted (which is also an option through the dealership using a BMW branded system recording to the satnav hard drive (no CD/DVD player/ ripper in my car but lots of memory) I would imagine that to have that in any Land Rover product you would be looking at a bill of £6-700 or more.
Also my car is “connected” but there is no SIM, it just works, as I found out 2 weeks ago when I was greeted by a message telling me that a system update had been down loaded to the car overnight and to connect by USB to update something in the app on my iPhone! No need to go to the App Store or online to update my app. I have the upgraded the latest Harmon Kardon Top of the Range audio system - it is very good and at £300 extra was an option that costs £5000 on an RRS to have the equivalent Meridian System........ So far I have not used the Apple Car Play that comes with the car - I only listen to the radio or use the car’s free subscription to Tune In for 1000’s of streamed radio channels. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Last edited by Tim in Scotland on Fri Jul 06 2018 12:37pm. Edited 1 time in total

Looks like you have fallen in love with this car Tim  In Spain - 2018 F Pace - Frightened away from the Sports due to crank failures
Gone - A couple of RRS, A couple of Disco's. However thinking of another Sport.

Yes, but I would have loved to have bought another new RRS. The F-Pace doesn’t really do it for me, maybe because it would be too close a call to an RRS, but like you found my wallet isn’t big enough these days to be buying a new RRS with the few extras that used to be standard kit. I could easily chop in the Mini for an I-Pace though - I see it has been voted the Auto-Express car of the year - but not an early one, i’ve Had enough being an unpaid fault finder for niggling faults that should have been found pre-launch and simply shouldn’t be there on a car costing what an RRS (even a low spec one ) costs.
I was sorting out car paperwork from my files the other day, invoice for invoice my Mini’s List price now was £50 short of what I paid for a brand new L322 TD6 SE FFRR in 2003 £41500!) and I feel that my Mini could easily be a proper baby FFRR like the Freelander2 used to be - except the road holding/ handling is better! 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

I was talking to my mate with the mini again the other day. To add to the story I mentioned on page 5, it turns out it’s very quick and easy to steal the front end of a mini! Mini have told him he’s been the victim of attempted theft, someone has spooked the would be thief minutes before completing the job. When will these low life scum bags stop causing misery to others! 2019 5.0 SC SVA (Current)
2012 5.0 SC AB. Sadly written off by a campervan
23 plate Focus ST (Current)
1942 VEP Ford GPW Jeep (Willys) (Current)
1943 Whites M16 Halftrack (Current)
16 plate Eurofighter Typhoon, 2 x Eurojet engines with 20,000lbs thrust each. 1380mph

I decided to follow Tim's lead and buy a Mini Countryman PHEV. The 3 month old Discovery 5 looking for a service at 2,800 miles was probably a factor! I will use the Mini to keep the miles off the two LR's, the oil dilution/early servicing means they are not really up to the task. It is a brilliant car for doing the short runs, I installed a charging point at home and can charge for free at the office which is 19 miles away - so far I can do the daily commute on 100% electric.
I'm not sure what LR's solution is, the dealer is doing free oil/filter changes but the inconvenience of going back and forth to the garage was getting too much to take. We just use the Disco for towing now and the RRS is probably only doing 100 miles/week. I will keep changing the oil/filter every 3,000 miles and hope I don't run into any issues.

Enjoy the Mini, it’s a hoot to drive I find! Just read for the first time of one with a fault ............. the seat heaters only going to mildly bum warming temperatures rather than cooked buttock mode. The owner cannot get his 3 day old car booked in for a month - sounds like some Mini dealers are as busy as LR dealers but I bet that it is all really Services and not rebuilding newly delivered cars with faults.

I haven’t driven my Countryman since July 12th as I’ve been away working overseas, but am looking forward to getting back to it. It will be interesting to see how the car’s HV battery has coped with being left plugged in on charge for 3 hours a day in off peak time for 3 months.
One problem i’m Having with mine................ I drive it 97% of the time in EV mode - it will take years to run in the petrol engine and the app tells me the next service is due in June 2021 based on present driving! 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Don't leave much petrol in it as it goes off if not run - the Mitsy starts the engine once it detects you haven't filled it for 3 months I think and runs until you put some in. Not experienced this myself but friend has had to deal with this regularly  Wanted a Series 2 LR since childhood but previously owned MY16 Disco Sport HSE TD4 Auto, MY13 RR Sport Black Edition TDV6 Auto, MY10 RR Sport HSE TDV6 Auto, 2007 Freelander 1 Freestyle TD4 Soft Top, 2009 Freelander 2 GS TD4 Auto, 2007 Freelander 2 GS TD4, 2004 Disco 2 Metropolis Auto, 2002 Disco 2 GS, 2000 Freelander 1 SE TD4 SW

Still hoping for a S2 one day!

I left it with about 12 litre in the tank (it only holds 35 when full) so i’ll Fill it up with fresh 4* when I get home. Must remember not to pull up at the derv pump though! In the 800 miles it has run so far the 12 litres in the tank are the remains of only the 2nd fill up I’ve had. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

1st problem with the car. Nothing huge but the charge indicator has dropped from it taking the full range in EV mode from 100% showing a 26 mile range to 100% now showing a 15 mile range yet the car will drive in EV mode for 18-20 miles...........
unfortunately they cannot take the car in until the 30th October but at least it is drivable and still charges even though I can go much further on a charge than the dash indicator would let you think you could. I wonder if it has happened as a result of using a public charge point recently. 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Hope it turns out to be just a minor glitch, Tim. Does it show only a 15 mile range even if you give it a full charge at home? Current: 2020 P400e HSE Dynamic

Gone: 2016 SDV6 HSE
2012 SDV6 SE

Yep, this morning is also warmer outside than the last two but it still shows only 15 miles after a full charging in off peak. The dealership couldn’t have been more helpful but i’m their PHEV guinea-pig - as far as I know they have never seen the other one that they have sold back again and it is a 2017 car whereas mine is the latest 2019MY versionnwith quite a few changes. I have only seen one other Mini PHEV on the roads - they are almost as rare as Velars! 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW

Went out to the Mini this morning expecting an inexpensive car to need to have the clock changed back to UTC............ it had already done the clock with no intervention from a human while everyone was asleep No need to delve into the dash board menus to finger poke. Soooooooo JLR if it is possible to have auto resetting back to Zone time after DST ends on a £32000 Mini how come it cannot be done on an £70,000 RRS or even on a £40000 Disco Sport or Evoque? 2020 Pangea Green 1st Edition D240 New Defender 110 is here and loving it
2018 Melting Silver Mini Countryman PHEV - soon to be replaced
2015MY Corris Grey SDv6 HSE Dynamic, the best car I have ever owned, totally reliable only a cou0le of rattles in 3 years, now no longer in my care
Also in my garage is a 1996 TDi300 Defender 90 County HT made into a fake CSW