2021 Mini Cooper S Countryman All4 review: Only fans

With its bug-eyed headlamps, cheeky smile and Union Jack-encouraged taillights, the 2021 Mini Cooper S Countryman All4 is cuter than a basket of puppies. Driving that lovely façade is a remarkably upscale inside, a person that’s also considerably roomier than you may assume from a corporation whose identify is synonymous with modest. The Countryman helps make a superior initially impression, but dig a tiny deeper and you may quickly find out it is considerably from picture excellent.   

The Countryman competes with mainstream modest crossovers like the Hyundai Kona and Subaru Crosstrek, but a broad design range will allow this Mini to have a foot in the top quality camp as properly. Its a lot more upscale rivals consist of the petite Audi Q3, BMW X1 and Lexus UX.

Ritzy digs

In top-shelf Legendary trim, the Countryman’s inside is a person of its most captivating functions. There are loads of very low-sheen gentle plastics and high-high-quality controls, and how can you not enjoy Mini’s retro-encouraged toggle switches? My tester’s dashboard is partially included in a nutty-brown leather-based that seems good and feels even superior. These cow hides spill about to the seats, the place the materials is embellished with a diamond-stitch sample and distinction-colour piping.

The entrance bucket chairs are chiropractor-approved, and I specifically like the extendable lessen bolsters, which provide added aid for taller people. Encouraging keep glare at bay, the driver gets a secondary, headliner-mounted visor to reduce the solar from shining in from the facet. Regardless of remaining a Mini, there is miles of house in this vehicle’s backseat, also. Lanky passengers are taken care of to ample space in all three proportions.

As a schlepper, the Countryman is decently commodious, supplying 17.6 cubic ft of house guiding the second-row seat and 47.6 cubes with the backrests folded down. You will find also a generous underfloor storage cubby, a good put to stash smaller merchandise out of the way. These figures are ideal in line with an Audi Q3, but a tiny shy of what the Volvo XC40 gives. Annoyingly, having said that, you cannot fold the rear seat down from the cargo location. Alternatively, you have to pull three independent lanyards in the second row to absolutely fall the 40/twenty/40-break up backrest.

Further than that, there are other ergonomic oddities. The inside doorway handles, for instance, appear to be backward. The put the place you seize these semicircular chrome levers is at the entrance, so you have to twist your wrist all-around to accessibility it. I discovered this type of bothersome, but Mini owners seemingly do not, as the corporation claims it hasn’t had complaints about this, so perhaps I am just an outlier.

The Countryman has a electronic instrument cluster, but it would not offer any driver-selectable data screens, which is unusual. What you see is essentially what you get. At minimum for 2022 you may be in a position to improve the colour plan.

Technically talking

In-auto tech is a noteworthy sore spot with the Countryman. My tester’s incredibly vast but shorter eight.eight-inch multimedia show with embedded navigation feels cramped. Thoughtfully, you can control factors in two methods, possibly via the touchscreen or a command knob on the centre console. Closely related to BMW iDrive, this Mini infotainment procedure is performant, booting up right away and efficiently responding when you pinch-and-zoom on the map, though it isn’t the most intuitive multimedia array you may locate. Taking care of radio presets is not pleasurable and there is no discrete tuning knob for promptly buzzing via stations. With so numerous menus to scroll or swipe via, and a alternatively steep finding out curve, it is certainly not a person of my favored infotainment techniques, though there are significantly worse choices out there.  

Simplifying factors, you can usually mirror your smartphone, ideal? It’s possible. Wi-fi Apple CarPlay is offered with the Touchscreen Navigation and Touchscreen Navigation Plus deals, though it is not included with the regular infotainment procedure due to the fact, in accordance to Mini spokespeople, that base components isn’t up to snuff. The Cooper S Countryman All4 I am tests here should have CarPlay, though I used at minimum fifteen minutes seeking to make it work and could not, disconnecting and reconnecting my mobile phone, plugging into different USB ports and digging via the owner’s manual for solutions, but no dice. If you are a Google enthusiast, I have a lot more undesirable information: Android Vehicle is not supported at all. Mini reps say they are operating on applying this engineering, though there is no timeframe when it may be obtainable.

The Countryman arrives with ahead-collision warning, but other state-of-the-art driver aids are nowhere to be discovered. Lane-centering engineering isn’t on the menu and blind-spot checking is not obtainable on any Mini design at all. At minimum adaptive cruise control with halt-and-go capability is offered on the Countryman, bundled in the Driver Aid Deal together with a head-up show and automatic parking. However, though, my tester is not fitted with this $one,250 choices group. Things are strengthening somewhat for 2022, as lane-departure warning is now regular throughout the Mini item portfolio and merchandise discovered in the Countryman’s driver-help bundle occur regular with the Legendary trim (and are obtainable on lessen-end variants, also). But continue to, this manufacturer is guiding the tech curve.

Greasy bits

Beneath its curvaceous hood, this Countryman is fitted with the uplevel 2.-liter turbo I4. It provides 189 horsepower and 207 pound-ft of torque, appreciably a lot more oomph than the regular three-cylinder motor supplies, though the plug-in hybrid Countryman is more powerful than that and the zippy John Cooper Is effective design a lot more powerful continue to. In this instance, twist is routed to possibly the entrance or all 4 wheels via an eight-velocity automatic transmission. Even though it is fitted with a torque converter, it normally feels like a twin-clutch gearbox at very low speeds as shifts are from time to time a tiny clunky. At the time underway, factors do smooth out.

Expect 23 mpg metropolis and 31 mpg highway from the Cooper S Countryman All4. Combined, it is rated at 26 mpg, though I have been averaging 25 and improve in combined use, which is very significantly ideal on target.

A dynamic dud

Minis are identified for their spunky efficiency and go-kart-like dealing with. This is accurate of the initial that debuted in 1959 and specifically the contemporary edition that released in the early 2000s. But with each individual 12 months and every technology, these autos get more substantial and bulkier, drifting further absent from what designed Minis so sensational. This is specifically accurate of the Countryman, which, to date, is the brand’s biggest and most-flexible design. Regardless of its frisky styling and sporting pretenses this crossover is a bit of a dud, no superior to generate than some thing as mainstream as a Honda CR-V.

Conspiring to make the Countryman experience entirely normal, its transmission is indecisive and from time to time unrefined, the brake pedal is gentle beneath your foot, and unless of course you set it in Activity method, the steering has a obvious lifeless spot on centre. This Legendary trim’s adaptive dampers assistance keep the overall body properly controlled, stiffening by ten% when you change to Activity method, but the ride is usually a skosh firmer than important. No, the Countryman isn’t so stiff that it crashes about bumps or bounds about undulations, but it in all probability would not will need to be as starchy as it is, specifically given that this firmness would not appear to be to provide any authentic dealing with advantage.

This vehicle’s alloy wheels may possibly be attractive, but the 225/45R19 Goodyear Eagle F1 tires they are wrapped in transmit lots of noise to the cabin, specifically on climate-overwhelmed pavement. At minimum the motor is gentle-spoken and smooth, in a position to transfer the Cooper S Countryman All4 from to sixty mph in all-around 7.one seconds. This efficiency is completely respectable, even if the auto hardly ever feels specifically fast. Swap about to the fuel-conserving Green driving method, having said that, and the powertrain will become just about unresponsive, requiring you to pretty much force the accelerator midway to the ground in advance of any improve in auto velocity manifests.

For the Mini devoted

The Countryman begins at about $30,000 which includes $850 in supply costs. If you will need all-wheel generate, it will charge you an added two grand. In a natural way, the pinnacle instance tested here is pricier than that, examining out for $forty three,600, a hefty sum contemplating the driver aids and other functions it lacks.

The Mini Cooper S Countryman All4 is a person of the a lot more disappointing autos I have tested in current memory. Its legendary styling and upscale (and surprisingly roomy) inside are definitely laudable, but the vehicle’s uninspiring dynamics, lack of functions and ambitious pricing are its undoing. Except you rely by yourself among the the Mini devoted, there are superior choices than the Countryman.