I’m near to pushing the button on one of two cars and one of them is a 2020 RF GT Sport Tech, but I need to make sure it fits in my pokey garage. Fairly certain it does, but I’d like someone to try to double check for me. A MINI F56 3-dr goes in but it sort of has to go in at an angle to make sure I can get the door open to facilitate my fat behind extricating itself from the vehicle and the MX-5 is a touch longer so it potentially alters the equation a bit as well as being a tiny smidge wider.
I’ll cover your fuel and time to an amount you’re happy with as you’re doing me a fairly chunky favour; more for my peace of mind than anything, but it would just save the almost inevitable anxiety on the long drive back home with it after giving my wallet far more GBH that I’d ideally like to subject it to.
I have an F56 3-door JCW. I thought it was a touch bigger than my ND, but if you’ve looked up the dimensions then you’re probably right. I feel like I can fit the ND anywhere I can fit the F56 but that’s a bit vague, I know.
Can you get an ND from your nearest Mazda main dealer for an unaccompanied test drive and just bring it home to try for yourself?
I’m willing to park almost millimetres away from things in my own garage, but in one I’m unfamiliar with - not so much, sorry.
I had the same problem. There’s a website called automobiledimensions.com which gives individual dimensions, as well as comparisons with different vehicles. I found it very helpful.
It’s just because of the fact I need to diagonally throw it in, the numbers don’t really help as they don’t show me how much of the door I can get open.
I’m 99% happy it will be fine, but that 1% will be catastrophic should it come to pass.
Funnily enough, a 2020 JCW is the other car on my list. It’s just I’m really struggling to find one with all the kit I want. Whereas with the MX-5, especially with UK specs, the car you choose is pretty much optionless so trim level dictates it, the MINI ordering system is all options-based. The only thing that throws a slight double-six into the MX-5 operation is I want the burgundy interior which wasn’t offered for long on 184s.
I’ve had 2 F56 Cooper Esses from brand new over the years and specced them to pretty high standards and in looking since late last year I’ve seen literally 1 car that has what I want. I’ve always been torn between the two cars - even though on paper they would seem not to be in the same ball park - but the MX-5 is starting to take a lead as I’d rather have a MX-5 that’s perfect than a JCW with bits missing.
The MX-5 wins on its MX-5ness while losing on practicality, garage footprint and the spectre of tinworm as it will be an all-year-round car - although it will sleep in the garage every night.
Just been looking and you’ve inadvertently helped me realised something… It’s been 3 years since I got shot of my last F56 and I had felt it was smaller than it was. Just checked out the numbers and the MX-5 is only 8mm wider which I knew about, but it’s also only 50mm longer and I thought it was closer to 300mm.
I can entirely sympathise with you manoeuvring into your own garage with millimetric precision but not wanting to try anyone else’s - I’m the same and people wince while watching me but I’ve practically got it down to muscle memory.
Right… you’ve inadvertently helped me put it to bed. Now, other objections come to the fore like justifying and scraping together the £20k for one!
I have about 8 weeks until my lease goes back so I need to sort something relatively sharpish!
I have a perpetual little bit of oil coming down from the remote mechanism which I don’t want going in the interior so that’s a no-no, I’m afraid! But thanks.
Cheers, yep - as a student of doing this for 15 years I’m all over that. Or at least I thought I was. Forgot that I always had F56s with power mirrors so gave them a blip as I went through the aperture and then released them again for targetting the far wall. However I had courtesy cars without them from time to time and garaged those bad boys. Probably had to grab the driver’s side one and slam it in
briefly… Oh well…
I have a large mirror propped up at the end of my garage. When I drive my MX-5 in, I can see the reflection and just how close i am to the wall (which has been lined with carpet).
I can get it pretty close now with just enough gap for the soft cover to drape over afterwards.
My garage has a recess towards the front which allows the nearside door mirror to miss the wall completely .
They’re very different cars. Have you driven some NDs? My JCW is a 2018, manual, with very low mileage and a very high spec. I’m the second owner but, like you, was looking for something quite specific. My ND is an ND1 with a BBR Super 200 conversion and dyno’d a fraction over 200hp. The ND also has suspension and brake upgrades. The Mini is standard. The drive and power delivery of each car is completely different. The MX-5 is probably quicker from a standing start if you wring its neck (now it’s been modified, standard it probably wouldn’t see which way the Mini went) but in-gear it wouldn’t surprise me if the Mini is still faster, despite its extra weight. The MX-5 is more satisfying and engaging to drive quickly down the road, and of course the roof comes down. The Mini is always a giggle and a bit of a hooligan. The point I’m making is that there’s a reason I own both cars and if I only had the Mazda I’d miss the Mini, and vice versa… as you clearly really like Minis, choose carefully!
The width with the mirrors is probably not the big issue. It sounds as if it will be the size of the gap you have left to get in and out of when the door is opened as far as you have room for.
Other things being equal, the longer the door the worse it will be.
I suspect the MINI has thicker doors so you might be OK. The MX5 also has frameless doors so you can have the window down and / or the roof down if you need to.
I used to keep my ND soft top in a garage IIRC 2.2 metres wide internally . I would park it with the left mirror an inch or two from the wall on that side, and open the driver’s door on to a piece of carpet I had fastened to the wall on the other side. The carpet was really helpful, I’m sure I would eventually have knocked some paint off the door without it.
It’s both really. The aperture on the way in is obviously narrower and without absolute precision a mirror would be knocked on the F56 (but they power fold), however a manual fold on the MX-5 while not ideal probably makes this a non-issue.
Assuming it goes it OK, I’ve got a few lumps of thick cardboard going up the wall which have hitherto been my guard against paint loss down the years. Whenever I have a delivery in a big box it gets replaced!
All generations of the 3-dr MINI have also been frameless doored and it makes a big difference. Leaving the roof down is not an option as I have a very slight oil drip every so often from the chain in the garage door mech. No issue on a roof, but I don’t want it on my seats!
Driven an early ragtop ND, but memory is fairly scant. Plus it was before the power hike. But it’s also pushing 3 years since I’ve owned a MINI and 6 since I last decided to buy one. It’s not that I like MINIs per se, it’s just indicative of a failing by other manufacturers to produce something I preferred. I don’t really have an allegiance. I’m looking for a 17" NRF shod JCW with Comfort Plus, Nav Plus, Adaptive Dampers, Matrix Lights and Active Cruise that isn’t in a ‘off’ colour. Ideally with a Chili roof. Probably willing to go without Matrix Lights and Active Cruise but Adaptive Dampers are a must, or possibly a Sports Suspension delete (but that seems to be even rarer!)
I’m happy to take a slush box JCW purely because I don’t find the F56 manual the last word in brilliant transmissions - I think the rev matching does a lot of the heavy lifting(!) but I’ll take either.
Either car will be stock and from a franchise dealer. I have no doubt the JCW will absolutely knock spots of an MX-5 but out and out performance isn’t the reason I’m buying. It’s just I’ve had two F56 Cooper S so I feel if I’m going back to it, I feel I need to knock it up a level. Plus this car will be one I’m keeping for 5 years or so, so I just want it to be broadly speaking the best it can be off-the-shelf. A Cooper S is fine, but I just don’t want a third one!
But I do appreciate the warning. The MX-5 does come with a lot of compromises, plus I have next to no interest in the roof ever coming down so it doesn’t even have that in its corner for me. A perfect JCW spec becoming available at the right price will marginally be preferable to me, but I don’t quite know where I define “perfect” on the spec/price front and where a decent MX-5 RF 184 becomes the preferred option.
The power delivery is obviously an issue. I have been used to forced induction for years now and I just don’t know whether the charm of the MX-5 will make up for having to work it comparatively hard.
I think if I get the MX-5, possibly given I’ve owned two nice F56 (albeit Cooper S) examples I’ll seldom look at a JCW and wish I had got that, but I think I would often do so were I to get a JCW. But I think the JCW is probably the common sense option given the constraints I’ve imposed upon myself.
I still think the MX-5 makes a lovely ownership proposition and something that I would love to have. I’m deferring a drive in both until I have a very real dilemma and I can go into it with a clean palate.
The other factor here is that I do very low mileage these days - sub 5,000 per annum relative to well over 25,000 pre-pandemic per annum miles. On that basis it could be argued that there isn’t a wrong decision to make!
Your search would be much easier if you were willing to modify an F56. Then you could put aftermarket 17s and adjustable suspension on the wider range of cars available to you. I was going to change the wheels and suspension on mine and intended to use https://www.lohen.co.uk/ but I got distracted when I had to refresh the suspension on my MX-5.
I had an R56 Cooper S, and have driven two F56 Cooper S quite a few times that don’t belong to me. If I were buying another F56, particularly if it was a main car, I would probably look for a Challenge 210 or Works 210 as I think it’s probably the sweet spot for that car.
Yeah, just had my fingers burnt in the past. Twice. It’s stock or nothing for me. Plus invariably you end up spending more than was planned. I remember really wanting a 210 when they came out - just couldn’t get a deal on one. Other than the mortar attack exhaust and being down on oomph, does the 210 offer a different set-up to the JCW?
I haven’t driven one but my assumption is that it drives like a Cooper S with a bit more urgency and top end. I.e. minus the unforgiving nature of a JCW. I’m not on runflats, but I am on 18s, and I assume my (passive) stock suspension is harder than a Cooper S. Whenever I drive my mum’s Cooper S I always think it’s much easier to live with but just lacks a little power at the top end compared to my JCW.
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