Illogical stuff in the SE. It's the little things...

Well that’s certainly interesting. I have a ‘21 and haven’t interacted with the 22’s interface. I’m surprised it changed so much


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Recent weather patterns reminded me of this: After a rain (or a quick hose down at the pay-n-spray), the water pools in the faux hood scoop opening. As you drive, the moving air will inspire that pooled water to randomly splash up onto the windscreen.

And it's amazing how long it takes after a rain/wash before you can roll a window down without it coming back up all wet and streaky.

 

The day before the body shop to began the surprisingly lengthy hood-replacement process, I was showing a friend my week-old SE's "motor bay." To my dismay, water that had collected in the fake hood scoop dribbled down through the hood and onto my head. The wrath of a hood scoop scorned!

 

One would think that when one ordered "Power Spoke" wheels BMW would supply the necessary Wheel balancing tool.

 

One would expect that MINI assumes you’ll go back to the dealership for wheel balancing (however rarely one needs to do it).

 

It does seem crazy they didn't, since they include the extraction tool for removing the cover. I got my own, but I have this nagging concern that one day the service department will think it's theirs and take it. I should mark it or something. I'm sure I'll forget to take it out on my rare dealer visits.

 

I live 60 miles from my dealer. In the event of a tire issue I would need to drive on a "run flat" for replacement, even if they have a the necessary tire.
My excellent sales person is investigating providing a balance tool, but eventually I expect I will buy my own. I have the suspicion that Tire Rack will be a little cheaper than my dealer's price?

 

If you want to stick with the brand/size of tires that came on your SE, Tire Rack or other US tire stores probably can't help you. I haven't found anywhere other than a MINI dealer to get the summer performance Hankooks that came on my SE.

 

I found the price difference isn't too significant, and if you have to pay for shipping from Tire Rack it's going to be more per tire. I always try and take advantage of the dealer "buy 3 get 1 free" seasonal deals, which makes them a pretty good buy. I don't think I've ever seen Tire Rack have deals like that.

 

I got this for my Tesla because Tesla wireless charger can't seems to charge my iphone 13 pro through the cover - But thing one does; Impressed. Thanks for sharing.

 

I'm in week one with my SE and... the stick. Forward is back, and back is forward. Driving me nuts.
I get where they're coming from, it's how sticks have always worked, but it just feels so wrong in this car for some reason!

 

I agree. I hate to admit but I've certainly quickly shifted into reverse on a few too many occasions when I was meant to be going forward... (I've been driving cars with dial shifters for too long it seems!)

 

Is it because on console shifters on most automatics over the past 50 years, the “R” is forward of “D”?

 

I think the big difference is that, in the SE, Park is a button rather than a position.

 

I think this was discussed a long time ago, but the gear order is a legacy of automatic shifters.

It's an industry design that is backwards from an ergonomic sense, made starkly noticeable with BEVs that only have "forward" and "backwards" instead of two or more multiple gears (PRNDL or PRND12, for example).

 

Yeah exactly what I meant. Thanks for the visual reference!

 

Related: quite a few “slap-stick” (clutchless) shifters over the past 20 years or so are also counterintuitively designed to match g-forces rather than angular acceleration, ie “pull back to up-shift, push forward to down-shift.”

 

I can never remember which way (push or pull) to shift up or down with the paddle shifters in my Clubman.

 

Thanks. That's exactly what I meant, too. If the SE forced you to push all the shifter the way forward to put it in Park (instead of having a button), then you would always pull back for any gear when starting out and you would, as usual, push forward from Drive to Reverse when parking. In the SE you still push forward from Drive to Reverse when parking.

 

As far as I remember, BMW push/pull gear selectors have been in automatics since the 2009 F10 5-series sedan. The gear selector makes more sense with the ICE vehicles that lets you access the sport mode +/- gears if you popped the shifter to the left. I still like the intuitiveness of pulling yourself forward and pushing off to reverse.

The real difficulty with BMW -> MINI is that the iDrive rotation is opposite. MINI starts at 9 o'clock and BMW starts at 3 o'clock.