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Video: You Get More Than You Think In The 2025 John Cooper Works Countryman

11:36 min
By Cars.com Editors
October 10, 2024

About the video

The Mini Countryman’s 2025 redesign brings more room and standard all-wheel drive to all Countrymans, while the top John Cooper Works performance version gets more power and a bunch of performance goodies.

Transcript

There's nothing many about the 2025 John Cooper Works Countryman, not its power, its size, or its price.
And an as tested $52,000, are you getting your money's worth from the new Countryman? I spend a week driving the JCW, put it through its paces, and you know what I found? You are getting a lot, but it's not necessarily where you think it is. The John Cooper works is the most performance oriented version of the countryman and the countryman itself has been redesigned for 2025. It's got a slightly longer wheel base and it's the largest mini you can buy right now, and it's decently sized. This is not a small vehicle and it doesn't feel like it. I have plenty of room in the front seat and the back seat. Headroom is great because of this tall squared off shape, and you do feel like you're driving a big vehicle because the hood line is high, and you have just a lot of room on the inside. It's good enough for maybe a second car for a small family, probably not for primary family duty, but I fit my kids in the backseat in a forward facing convertible in a booster and had good room. There's also decent amount of cargo room behind the backseat. So overall, this is a roomy SUV, and it's similar in size to an Audi Q3 or a BMW X1 or X2. The Mini is actually a corporate cousin of those vehicles, and on the non-luxury side, similar to the Honda HR-V or the Toyota Corolla Cross. Now those are subcompact SUVs, and you may think subcompact means small, but really subcompact SUVs today are about the size of compact compact SUVs from 10, 15 years ago. So there is a lot of room in here, more than you would think. under the hood is perhaps what most differentiates the JCW from the regular countryman. And that is a 312-horsepower turbocharged four cylinder. Now that power is up from last year, although torque is down quite a lot, but we measured zero to 60 in 5.2 seconds, which matches Mini's claim. And there's a new parts here. There's a new seven-speed dual clutch automatic transmission that replaces the conventional eight speed in the previous version. And there's some good and bad with that. There's some really fast hard shifts when you're in the most performance oriented mode. And then from a stop though, there's this delay, and I feel a lot of that is coming from the transmission that's reluctant to get you going. So you smash the accelerator and then you just wait, and then the clutch engages, and then the boost takes off, and you're off to the races. But it's really slow to respond when you're just sitting at a stop sign and need to get away fast. Or if you're trying to merge in a traffic and you're at a stop and it's slow to get going. Now what mitigates that is launch control. Now, of course, you have to enable the correct drive modes and do the fancy footwork activate, go-kart mode, fake Mario, (car revs) and that works. You really get quick acceleration from a stop. That's how we got our fast zero to 60 times. But other than that, you're just kind of left waiting when it's gonna take off. The JCW also has something called boost mode, but it doesn't boost engine output. It doesn't make the car any faster than it already is. All it does is allow you, if you're driving in more comfort oriented mode, you hit the paddle, and then for 10 seconds you can drive in the most sportiest settings, and then it'll default back to comfort mode. You're not gonna get an extra 30 horsepower or whatever by pressing that button. All right. And then there's the handling, which is kind of interesting because you would expect this Mini to drive like a go-kart all the time, but in reality you have to put it in go-kart mode to get the most proficient handling, which I am deeply offended by, because this really should drive like that all the time. There should be limo mode instead of go-kart mode. And honestly, the Mini just feels kind of soft and floaty when you're not in that mode that turns up the adaptive suspension all the way. Now this does have an adaptive suspension that can change shock absorber firmness, and it works really well when you're turned up in sport mode. And the go-kart mode engages sport mode, but it does not engage sport plus mode. You have to go into the individual settings for go-kart mode and enable sport plus mode, which will turn down the electronic stability control a little bit. So there are multiple layers here to get the most dynamic handling, and it handles well. It does. It's a really proficient handling vehicle, but I think it's missing some of that fun to drive character because honestly you're not getting that through the steering wheel. In previous generation of Minis, you did get that feedback in steering feel like you're engaged with the driving experience, and that's missing in the JCW for 2025. The JCW Countryman has been full of surprises, really, it's been a really interesting vehicle to drive and learn about. What stunned me though were these breaks. Now these are the optional JCW performance breaks that were $500, and they are amazing. The stopping power on this car will suck the eyeballs right outta your head. I didn't expect this to stop as quickly as it did when I really threw out the hooks to test the brakes, and that surprised me because it's bigger, it's heavier, but the braking performance with these are just phenomenal. Even in go-kart mode though, the ride quality is very nice and maybe you expect that because it doesn't feel like the sharpest, most hunkered down car, but it really is a pleasant car to drive. It's not a small car with a jittery ride. Even in the most turned up modes, you can drive the Mini with great levels of ride comfort. So I found the ride quality very livable where I was driving in the suburbs, but as soon as I got into the city, the ride quality did get a little brittle and bouncy. So take note of that, depending on where you live. Now with the rest of the vehicle being maybe a little softer than you would expect, do you really need this much braking power? No, but if for whatever reason you did plan to track this car, autocross this car, I can't see how you would pass these. Look at them, they're massive. So handling the dynamics may be fun to some people, but there are other ways that the mini is fun and that's the interior design. I'm a big fan of what you're looking at. Just sitting here static. You have this very interesting, fabric lined dashboard with red accent stitching and patterns. There's just pretty cool stuff all around on the steering wheel. The third spoke is a racing stripe fabric, almost like a seatbelt. And then you have the controls over here, which the gear selector is a toggle switch. The engine start/stop is almost kind of like a key and a tumbler that you would turn like an old car. And then the drive mode is this experience button, which is a toggle switch, which is really cool. And then you have the seats that have unique stitching in patterns and then it makes noises too when you change the drive mode. So the interior is certainly interesting and so is this screen, but is it easy to use? No, it's not. And that's unfortunate because it looks so awesome. I mean, look at these vibrant colors and the graphics, the animation, everything is just so cool. But I really struggled to use this screen. Not all of it is just the screen either. I'm not a big fan of when automakers take climate controls out of physical controls and put it digital in a screen. And here you have that where you have to go into a menu for climate controls if you wanna adjust anything other than temperature. And then the screen itself there. There are a couple things that are not great when comparing to a traditional screen. Apple CarPlay, for example, Apple CarPlay does not display in a circle. It displays in a rectangular or square shape. And when you have Apple CarPlay in this car, it's limited to a small screen, so you're not even able to use the full screen for CarPlay. Some technology that you might not expect in a Mini because it's such a driving focus vehicle are features that drive for you kind of. There's semi-autonomous driving features. This actually has a hands free driving feature that's optional at up to 37 miles per hour can go hands free. And the optional package adds the feature as well as a camera that will monitor you. And it's something that you don't really expect in in this vehicle, and definitely not at at this price either. That typically seems like a luxury feature because you do see a lot of hands-free driving systems on luxury vehicle. But this is also limited to 37 miles per hour. So kind of barely crawling above traffic speed does limit where you can use this. There are more unexpected features including a heated steering wheel. And then there's also an augmented reality navigation system. All things that again are more luxury car or high-end sports car than Mini. So you are getting a lot with the JCW Countryman, but you're also paying a lot. The $52,000 as-tested price with options puts you in the range of some really good performance options in that price range, like a Tesla Model 3 or a Tesla Model Y. And another good performance EV is gonna be the Kia EV6 that are all gonna out-accelerate the JCW Countryman. And on the gasoline side, if you're looking for a performance hatchback, it's really hard to ignore the Volkswagen Golf R, which really, that's what you should be looking at if you're looking for another gasoline hatchback, all wheel drive turbocharged fun-to-drive vehicle. What's gonna sway you toward the Mini is going to be the interior experience and the technology, and not necessarily the power and handling. And when we're talking about the top JCW performance-oriented countrymen, it's just a little disappointing.

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