Sold our MCS/JCW. Only posted it on craigslist and got a lot more activity than expected. Amazingly it was purchased sight unseen by someone in Los Alamos, NM who is arranging to have it shipped to him. Yes, I'm being exceedingly cautious on this. Funds have been wired but the truck won't be picking the car up for about 10 days so there's time to insure that there aren't any funny things with the finances.
So, after having 2 MINIs over 5 1/2 years there'll be an empty slot in the garage. Great car and will miss it.
Replacement BMW 135i has completed production and is sitting in a parking lot at the factory awaiting transportation to the boat.
135i, nice car! I've been thinking along the same line, the 128i or 135i just may be my next car. Recently I read that the Bimmer is not available with a manual shift transmission (say its not true!), if this is true I will definitely stay with my MCS.
Since I've ordered (and driven) a 5-speed 135 the article you read was wrong. You can go to the BMWUSA web site and 'build your own' which shows the manual.
It's interesting that there are a few inaccuracies in a number of articles I've seen about the 135. A frequent error says that the twin turbos are sequential, with the second one coming on at higher revs. In fact the two turbos run in parallel.
I configured a new MCS / JCW on the MINI web site and without going crazy on the options it came in at about $34K. That's more than the 128. The MSRP on the 135i is $34,900, but options can run that figure up pretty quickly. We added the Sport Package (primarily better seats & thicker leather steering wheel plus a few other small things), Cold Weather Package (primarily heated seats), BMW assist (their version of OnStar), Sirius radio, and backup sensors (we have these on another car and they are really quite useful). It seems that 1 Series prices are all over the place, with some dealers in the same region refusing to sell for less than MSRP and others willing to negotiate. We were able to get a price that isn't all that much greater than the price of the MCS/JCW that I configured.
I usually buy pre-owned cars which are 3-4 years old, nicely broken in, maybe some warranty remaining and of course a big break on the price of a new car. So I'll let BMW work out the kinks on the first couple of model years and maybe around 2010 I might be in the market for a one series.
Probably a smart move. Ask me in a year about reliabiliity. Luckily the car has a good warranty.
The 1 Series has been available in Europe for a few years and the twin turbo engine has been in the 3 Series for a year or so, so hopefully reliability will be OK.
