Mazda Miata vs. Mini Roadster

In 1996 I bought a new Mazda Miata.  I owned it for 16 years but last month I put it into a guardrail on a wet day and it was totaled.    The damage wasn't that great (happened below 30 mph on an on-ramp) but the car was old enough and valued low enough that it was totaled.  So it was time to find a replacement convertible.  I have a 1998 LS400 as my daily driver, so this is strictly a fun car which gives me different standards than usual. I started out with a large field and eliminated several cars just thinking and researching it  for various reasons:

• Used BMW E46 convertible:  Almost impossible to find with a manual transmission.  Too much car for a sunny day toy.  Sketchy reliability and expensive to own. If I bought one at the price point I want, I'd be getting it just when it starts needing expensive repairs and replacements
• Volkswagen EOS:  has more space and is a nice car but in my opinion, Volkswagen + complex top mechanism = disaster waiting to happen. Plus it has a pretty flexy body structure and is underpowered and expensive for what you get. 
• Used Miata: lots of them out there but hard to find one that's what I want, in good shape.  Also the previous generations are smaller inside (I was starting to feel that in mine that wrecked) and as I get older the act of putting up the top from inside the car gets harder. Since I kept the last one 16 years and will probably keep this one long term, a used one already has some time used up and closer to being a jalopy.  The newer ones that have the hardtop I want all have automatic transmissions and nearly-new prices on the used market. 

So I was down to a Mini Convertible and a Miata hardtop.  After a trip to the Mini dealer and some test drives I discovered the Mini Roadster and quickly decided it was a better contender than the Mini Convertible.  The Roadster has more trunk room, and when the top is down it doesn't block the bottom half of the view out the back like the convertible does.  Plus the roadster is designed so that the trunk access is not affected when the top is down, which is a virtue the Mini convertible lacks.  The only thing the Mini convertible brings that the Mini roadster doesn't is a back seat, which in a Mini is of zero value in my opinion.

So I found myself deciding between the Miata and the Mini Roadster. Here is my comparison.

Price: of course it all comes down to options and configuration but they are both high 20's to low 30's vehicles well equipped, and both have some flexibility on price.  This is a wash.

Exterior Appearance, top up: The Miata looks great, it all fits together.  The hardtop is body colored and works well with the shape of the car, with lots of glass.  On the Mini, the only top available is a black soft top which doesn't go well with any color except black. Plus the Mini top has a lot of black cloth and not enough glass so it looks even worse, especially from the rear, and it looks tacked onto the car. Advantage: Miata

Kinda awkward looking with the top up. 

It all fits together with the top up

Exterior appearance, top down:  They both look pretty good with the top down.  I think the Miata looks slightly better but not that much better.  Draw.

Nice looking with the top down

Also looks great with the top down

Interior appearance and ergonomics:  This one is no contest, the Miata by a mile.  Like all Minis, the Mini Roadster has a Fisher Price clown car interior with a pie plate speedometer in the center of the dashboard and a bunch of toggle switches that are randomly placed with tiny, cryptic labels.   Behind the steering wheel is a completely useless "openometer" that purports to measure your cumulative top-down time (why?) and a  tach that you can't really use because its top half is  blocked by the steering wheel. Even though the steering wheel is adjustable the instruments move with it so you can't adjust the steering wheel to make the top of the tach visible. Mini clearly knows the center speedometer is useless because there is also a digital speedometer in the tach, where the real speedometer should be.  But I don't like digital speedometers.   In my opinion, the speedometer should be where the tach is and the tach should be where the openometer is. The Miata on the other hand has a very well executed traditional layout, all the instruments you need are right there in front of you and the steering wheel is adjustable separate from the instrument binnacle, everything is clearly labeled and the switches are big enough to easily use. 

Seriously, Mini?

That's more like it. 

Comfort:  The Mini is a more comfortable car.  It has more interior room and wider seats that are more comfortable and also there is more room in all directions: more legroom, more room between the driver's knees and the steering wheel, more space in the footwell, more headroom with the top up.  The Miata has aggressively bolstered sport seats which isn't how I like it. Other than that the seats are nice and the steering wheel feels nicer than the Mini.  The Miata has non-adjustable lumbar support that is too aggressive for my taste.

Powertrain:  The base Mini has a 121 horsepower engine, which is underpowered.  For about $3500 more you can get the S level which has 181 turbocharged horsepower.  All Miatas, including the base models have 167 naturally aspirated horsepower.  Both cars rev nicely, but I'm not a big fan of turbocharging and since it costs extra to get the oomph the Mini needs, the Miata gets the nod on this count.  The 6 speed manual transmissions in both cars work and feel nicely, but the Miata's is slightly better.  When I was test driving the Mini, I nearly backed into the car behind me at a stoplight because I was in reverse instead of 1st gear.  This wasn't a problem on the Miata, because its shifter is  more precise than the Mini, plus the Miata shifter feels better with a nicer leather covering, and a nicer shift motion, and clicking into gear better.  Advantage Miata. 

Driving experience: The Mini has a nice driving experience, but the Miata's is better.  The Miata is a purpose built rear wheel drive roadster designed for that mission from a clean sheet, while the Mini Roadster is adapted from the regular Mini platform and is front wheel drive.  Minis are fun cars to drive, but the Miata feels more like a complete put together roadster package. Both cars have relatively stiff suspension and noisy tires. They are, after all, sports cars. 

Practicality:  This has some overlap with interior and ergonomics, but the Mini is a more practical car.  It has more room, a bigger trunk, and a passthrough from the cabin to the trunk so you can reach into the trunk from the seats.  This is a nice feature, especially in a small cabin with limited storage.  Both cars are designed so that the top being down has no effect on the trunk space or access, which is something that much bigger and more expensive cars haven't been able to accomplish. Kudos to both Mazda and Mini for that.  My brother has an Infiniti G convertible and he says that when the top is down, you can get a ham sandwich in the trunk -- if it doesn't have lettuce.  I looked briefly at a Volvo C40 convertible and with the top down you can't even get to the trunk.    Both cars have cupholders but the Mini also has a styrofoam tray in the trunk right behind the door to the cabin that you can put ice and drinks in and reach from the cabin, which is pretty cool.  If I had to take a multi-hour road trip in one of these cars, I'd want to do it in the Mini. 

Top operation: Both are pretty easy.  The Mini comes standard with a manual top, but it has gas struts so when it's down you push a button and it pops up for easy grabbing and putting up.  It's easier than the manual top of the Miata, which I can't really operate from inside the car without shoulder and back discomfort because you have to twist around and dig down to lift it up.  The Miata hard top is simplicity itself, just push a button and it goes up or down in less than 15 seconds.  I didn't try the Mini's power top, didn't think it would be necessary since the manual top is so easy, but I assume it's just as easy as the Miata.  Slight Mini edge simply because its manual top is easier than the Miata's manual top. 

Options availability and flexibility:  This is a well-known Mini virtue.  You can get a Mini just about any way you want it with any combination of colors, accents, and options in just about any configuration. By contrast, the Miata is packaged like a typical Japanese car: it has a few colors,  very few interior/exterior color combinations, and a few option packages to choose from and even that is less flexible than it sounds. There are three Miata option packages and two of them require each other so there's really only  two configurations: no option packages (good luck finding one like that) and both option packages (the vast majority of them are built like this). The third package (appearance package) doesn't interest me and not many have it.  The option packages of course include unrelated options, for example bluetooth phone and xenon headlamps are both in the Miata Premium package.  Want one option? Take them all or live without. Advantage Mini.

Technology: Mazda is a few years behind here.  Bluetooth phone is only available on the very top end Miata, with a premium package.  Neither bluetooth music nor a USB port nor navigation are available from Mazda on a Miata at any price, though it does have an aux port to plug in the headphone jack of your iPhone or other music player.  The Mini has options for all those available on all levels of the car, plus it has Mini Connected, which is an iPhone app and interface that seems pretty cool -- if you have an iPhone, which I don't.  Advantage Mini. 

Reliability/Cost to own:  My last Miata was pretty much bulletproof for 16 years. Mazda has that reputation and it's confirmed by sites like Truedelta and Consumer Reports.  Mini reliability seems to be sketchier and and those sites also confirm that reputation. Mini also appears to be expensive to repair and maintain when things break which isn't that surprising since it's a BMW product. Advantage Miata. 

General Style:  I've heard the Miata called a girl's car, I assume that's because it's cute.   Whatever, at my age and happily married stage in life I don't care. I like it as long as I can get a manual transmission.   On the other hand the Mini has a wing on the back that rises at 50 miles an hour and goes back down at 30.  I hate that, is anything dumber than driving 40-45 through town with a wing up?  It's totally poseur/dorky and you can't turn it off.  Well it better be poseur, because if the Mini really needs a wing to have decent grip at 50 mph, something is seriously wrong with the chassis.  Advantage Miata. 

Final decision: I decided on the Miata.   Reliability is important to me and Mazda wins there.  I live in the sticks and getting a car to a shop to be repaired is a real logistical undertaking, plus the only Mini dealer in town is about as far away from me as you can get and still be in the Triangle area.  Miata's inferior interior room and comfort did give me pause but it's still a significant improvement over my first generation Miata and I lived with that for 16 years.  Plus I took a Miata on a two hour extended test drive and found that the cruise control goes a long way toward ameliorating any comfort problem, since on boring roads I can put it on and move/shift my legs around.   On fun roads the car seems to get bigger.  I also don't like Miata's technological inferiority but the fact is I'm not buying a phone accessory.  I can use the bluetooth phone and plug my audio jack into the aux port. It's not ideal but it's workable.  I don't need nav because my phone has it and I usually drive to places I already know. 

If I were choosing between the two for a daily driver I might  pick the Mini because of its better comfort and practicality.  I say "might" because I still don't think I could look at the Mini's dashboard and instrument panel every day.  I've read on various car blogs that you get used to it, but I don't know.  It's that bad and may be a deal breaker for the daily driver case.  However I have another daily driver car, so that point is moot.  I'm buying a toy and the Miata is a better toy.  It's more fun.

That said I don't dislike the Mini.  I chose a Miata for myself, but I'm glad Minis are on the road, and seeing one on the road usually makes me smile.  For me, Minis are best enjoyed looking at them from the outside.

iTunes: a huge albatross on Apple devices

Having both an Android phone and an iPad I get to experience both platforms' advantages and disadvantages.  I recently got a big reminder of a big disadvantage of Apple devices: iTunes.

I recently tried to buy an app in the app store that requires the gyroscope in my iPad 2.  The install failed because the app couldn't recognize the gyroscope.  A little googling revealed that this is an iOS bug and an iOS update would be required to fix it.  This is what had to happen to accomplish that:

1. Plug iPad into the laptop and start iTunes
2. Wait a few minutes for iTunes to recognize the iPad
3. Wait about 20 minutes while iTunes synchs the iPad 
4. Select update iPad software in iTunes.  iTunes then informs me that it must be udpated before it can do this software update on the iPad.
5. Update iTunes.  This includes a several megabyte download and about 20-30 minutes of updating.    Oh, and this update requires the laptop to be restarted so...
6. Restart laptop
7. Restart iTunes, again plug in iPad and wait for it be recognized
8. Select update iPad software in iTunes.  iTunes warns me this may take over an hour, and whatever you do don't interrupt the process.  Oops, check the laptop battery, better go get the cord and plug it in since the above steps have used so much of the charge that it may not last for the whole rest of the process.
9. Watch the 45 minute download of new iPad software to iTunes. I wrote most of this blog entry while waiting for this. 
10. As part of the installation of the update, iTunes first backs up the iPad, even though it just did it in step 3 above and absolutely  nothing has changed on the iPad since then. This is apparently  not a smart backup because it takes just as long as step 3 did. 
11. Finally, the update is applied to the iPad. 
12. After the update is installed, the iPad is restored to factory settings and reboots
13. iTunes restores the iPad from the backup created in step 10.  About 20 minutes here. (note that when Android updates, it leaves the user data in place and no back/restore is required)
14. Now on the iPad, I am prompted to manually restore my location services setting, my Apple ID (hope I haven't forgotten the password!), my birthday, agree to  terms and conditions (even though I already had to agree to them to download the update in the first place)
15. I'm counting this as a separate step than the above because it involves new features that the previous iOS didn't support so seems reasonable to ask me to set up or decline: iCloud, backup to iCloud, and "find my iPad" service.  Finally my iPad is ready to use again. Phew, the better part of a weekend morning is gone!  Oh, and my iPad desktop icons have all been moved, thanks Apple!

Oh and by the way you better have ensured the iPad had enough battery power left to complete this process, because the iPad doesn't charge when plugged into a PC. 

By contrast, this is how I update the Android software on my Evo:

1. On the phone, click "update" to the push notification that pops up when an update is available
2. The phone downloads the update in the background, when on wifi, to avoid using up the data plan. If I leave a wifi spot it pauses the download and resumes again when back on wifi.  While the download is underway, can do other things on the phone.
3. After the update downloads, respond positively to the prompt to install it
4. The update installs, phone reboots itself, finished.