There has been a lci or update recently-union jack rear lights etc-so might be worth doing your homework to see if you like the differennce/they're a deal breaker.
Depreciation first year is high due 20% vat and taxes-levels out after that so a 1 year old car is a good buy-and you do lose more on options so your 30k car may well only be worth 14k max in 3 years time-something to bear in mind but for some choosing the options is just so nice!

Real world economy is widely posted on here and really depends on driving but ranges from 35mpg to 40's or more on long gentle runs-d is much more economical of course. Search for the thread. Not sure r the next revamp-may well be a totally new model but others on here know more!

 

My wife has a 3 door Cooper SD and I drive a Clubman Cooper S.

With mixed driving, MPG in the diesel is between 40 to 60 and 30 to 40 in the petrol.

All of the grunt is at the low end of the rev range in the diesel (between 2k and 3k) and at the high end in the petrol (4k to 6k). In the real world this means it feels like the diesel runs out of puff and the petrol get more oomph as you floor it.

I bought an 18 month old car and paid £10k less than the price when new. In general options and extras depreciate heavily, so the more toys you get the more it will depreciate.

Wheel size and tyre specs can also make a difference to how the car feels, cars with run flats and smaller side walls are harder and therefore give a firmer (and sometimes crashier over bumps) ride.

As we all have different preferences for what we want from the car the only way to really tell is to go to a dealer and test drive some of the different configurations. I almost went for an auto box as the 8 speed is really smooth, but a manual car came up for sale at the right price with the spec i was looking for.

 

You don't say how you plan to finance your Mini, but that could be a very important factor in your decision making process.

If you are planning to use your own money and particularly if you want to own the car outright for many years to come, then the 'nearly new' route is likely to be a better idea than a brand new one. There are a lot of nearly new MINIs available with really low mileage unlike typical fleet cars so you can get a lot for your money by buying used. The downside of owning outright is that you are 'paying' a depreciation cost as the residual value of the car reduces every month even if there isn't payment going out of your bank account.

If you go for a new one you'll have to pay for the highest part of the depreciation curve. However the dealer offered finance packages (think lease or PCP) tend to work out much better value for money than on a used car, i.e. pay the same amount for 3 years to have new vs a 2 or 3 year old car at the start of the agreement.

Chris

 

Clubman cooper S: 75% city highway (...I don't know how I could define an highway with speed limit of 55-65 m/h) about 42mpg (english mpg!!!)

With the petrol Cooper S you have the sport mode and some funny noises at the exhaust!

 

Welcome along

I'd think if you do some careful shopping around you will find dealers with pre-reg'd and unreg'd in stock that they need to shift to meet targets and with hard bartering you could pick up a really good deal. Play a few off against each other!

Dealers over price used stock IMO and play on the options fitted but when you want to trade they tell you they are worthless.

As to SD or S really depends what you want it for, lowish mileage with short runs then petrol, long motorway runs maybe derv..

Good luck