[Rick Lee]

My fiance has an '06 non-S, steptronic trans. The hesitation issue was not fixed when we took it in to complain. My BMW 330i had a similar issue when going from R to D, but a reflash did fix it. With the Mini the dealer folks drove it around and said that's how they are. I find the non-S to be severely underpowered and the tranny lag bothers me. I also would not buy any car that had only been maintained according to the dealer's maint. schedule. Would you really let a car go 10-15k miles between oil changes? I do ours every 5k miles and keep a log book of everything I touch on the car, date, mileage, etc. I do, however, think the Mini handles very well and is a very good bang for the buck. But when you're used to fast cars and motorcycles, our non-S Mini is a bit of a buzzkill.