My wife bought herself a new Mini Cooper (standard, not the "S") and gave it to me last August (the radio reception was lousy and the ride too harsh).
I love this little thing! I have a 64 mile round trip commute to work, over very windy mountain roads, and this car is way too much fun. Hit the sport button and keep it over 3000 rpm, and things happen VERY quickly. It is also great in the snow, with snow tires. My mileage has gone down with the snow tires, but in the summer and fall, I was averaging 42.6 mpg. This while spanking a Mustang GT on the twisties, and on a couple of occasions, dropping 15 minutes off of my commute! (one way) I am at around 25 thousand miles with no issues. Hope to avoid some of the problems I have read about on this site. I hope that regular maintenance is the key.
Peace all...

 

mind if i ask what kind of snow tires you're rockin? i've got some Blizzack's that i love to death. i had them on an 03 nissan sentra specV and only ever got stuck once. but that was due to riding up ontop of a drift. i was skeptical that tires could have that much of an impact on winter driving but after the blizzacks i will always have a set of winter tires. I live in iowa and we haven't had the strong winters we used to the past couple years but we still get some occasional blizzards rolling thru. Anyways welcome to the mini community, hope everything is well!

 

Definitely regular and preventative maintenance are key. Congrats and welcome!