[Fred]

two sticks - I appreciate you sharing your experience. I have heard a few murmurs of horror stories, but yours had enough details to be food for thought.

Of course, to make things more complicated...I could consider opting for an extended warranty to cover off my risk on that front.

I do share two sticks question, though...if you haven't had any issues, how many KMs/miles have you racked up?

I am not a high mileage driver, but I do put 20-24,000 KMS/12-14,000 miles on a car in a year.

How do you find the ground clearance? Will parking in a grass field at a horse show be problematic? What about winter driving? How does it handle and how does it deal with snow?

Backstage, I think they are the cutest cars, and I used to drive one when I lived in the UK (back in the previous century). I also used to work for British Leyland, and drove one then...
For our climate though? I wouldn't do it. One of my barn helpers had one, and we spent a lot of time pushing her out of the driveway. The low clearance meant that she got stuck just on the snow underneath.
And driving over the irregular, often rutted fields at a horse show? oy. I can hear the bottom scraping now.

[horsepoor]

For our climate though? I wouldn't do it. One of my barn helpers had one, and we spent a lot of time pushing her out of the driveway. The low clearance meant that she got stuck just on the snow underneath.
And driving over the irregular, often rutted fields at a horse show? oy. I can hear the bottom scraping now.

My Clubman has the same, or perhaps more, clearance than the Honda Civic that I drove everywhere. I never had any trouble with either car driving on the horribly rutted and potholed, muddy driveway of previous boarding barns, except one weird tire pressure monitor system glitch. The Clubman has never gone to a horse show, but the Civic handled bouncing across the grounds just fine. I have driven both on small amounts of snow just fine, but knew going in with either car that I would not drive much in snow as we have a Subaru AWD for that.

[OnThinIce]

Another virtual Mini wave. (I forgot to mention that perk. An exuberant grin and wave from other Mini drivers. ) Congratulations!

And just a suggestion for personalizing your new ride's tailgate:

http://www.purplemoon.com/Stickers/images/lifeg-hrs.gif