Fast Highway Entry Launch?

[ClutchDisc]

If you turn of the DSC - or whatever that traction control thing is called, the hill holder feature turns off as well. The countryman doesn't have hill descent assist, at least not that I am aware of.

What's hill descent assist?

[minishadow]

What's hill descent assist?

A feature that modulates the gears in an automatic (i.e. downshifts to an appropriate low gear) and modulates the breaks for you. So that you can easily go down steap inclines either on road or offroad. more usefull offroad however, imo. Ultimately - you don't have to ride your breaks down a hill, akin to cruise control for down hill drives.

[ClutchDisc]

What's hill descent assist?

A feature that modulates the gears in an automatic (i.e. downshifts to an appropriate low gear) and modulates the breaks for you. So that you can easily go down steap inclines either on road or offroad. more usefull offroad however, imo. Ultimately - you don't have to ride your breaks down a hill, akin to cruise control for down hill drives.

Okay thanks. I was trying to think why on earth you would need hill descent assist on a manual.

[ClutchFork]

If you turn of the DSC - or whatever that traction control thing is called, the hill holder feature turns off as well. The countryman doesn't have hill descent assist, at least not that I am aware of.

What's hill descent assist?

We all have hill descent assist. It is called downshifting.

But this seems like some special unnecessary feature. So he will do well to turn the whole mess off and drive it like a normal standard shift car.

[MFan]

If you turn of the DSC - or whatever that traction control thing is called, the hill holder feature turns off as well. The countryman doesn't have hill descent assist, at least not that I am aware of.

Hmmm...I have to do a bit more research on that or at least give it a try. But I don't think I would want to disable Traction Control just in order to be able to shut off Hill Hold Assist

A feature that modulates the gears in an automatic (i.e. downshifts to an appropriate low gear) and modulates the breaks for you. So that you can easily go down steap inclines either on road or offroad. more usefull offroad however, imo. Ultimately - you don't have to ride your breaks down a hill, akin to cruise control for down hill drives.

Here's the official description from BMW on Hill Descent Control => http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/tech ... ntrol.html

It doesn't modulate or mess with any gears at all...so, it's not just for automatic transmission. FYI...The previous generation X5 (E53) had the 5-speed and 6-speed manual transmission as standard and it came with Hill Descent Control. I have never tried this feature on my X5 (haven't found an off-road hill that's steep enough to try)...so I don't know if it's a "gimmick".

[LHOswald]

tankinbeans - thanks for the suggestion. Ya not concerned with smoothness in that situation. Ideally i'd like to floor it from the get go like in an automatic. I suppose i just have to figure out how to address the same situation in an manual without doing a "hard launch" (high rpm->clutch dump).

and by the way, the engine feels great - zippy, once i'm out of first gear.

in an AWD countryman, i feel like high rpm + clutch dump = destroyed tranny or (eventually) destroyed mounts. not sure how the mini is designed (im sure its designed well...those crazy deutch) but i know that earlier year subaru WRX's are notorious for their tranny's letting go from people (read: ricers) stabbing the throttle and dumping the clutch.

also i wouldn't consider a high rpm clutch dump as a hard launch. more of a way to smoke your tires and not go anywhere. although with AWD your more than likely just going to hurt something doing that.

[Squint]

I would do what his bovine holiness said for a quick start. Since you're not actually racing and your start time doesn't count, just start normally, then as soon as you are in gear, put the pedal down. Once you are in first and going from there, just be consistent between your gear shifts in how much you let the RPMs drop and with a little clutch shifting, you should be fine.

As in, if normal driving, shift from 1st at 2500 RPM and end up in 2nd at 1800 RPM, try to let it fall roughly that much, even if it is 4000-3300 RPM. Then, with a little clutch work, your shifts should end up smooth enough.

[daleadbull]

If you truly want to launch like a bat outta hell, then the only way to do that is to give it more revs before engaging the clutch. With AWD, you don't have to give it a lot of revs, just around 2000 should be plenty quick enough.

But for quick left/right turns, you can just do what the cow said, just no gas launch to roll up a little and engage 1st completely then its just like an automatic, mash and go.

Think of the no-gas launch as the equivalent to the "automatic creep" that happens when you let off the brake in a slushbox.

[tankinbeans]

If you turn of the DSC - or whatever that traction control thing is called, the hill holder feature turns off as well. The countryman doesn't have hill descent assist, at least not that I am aware of.

What's hill descent assist?

Close your eyes, pray, and floor it.

[IMBoring25]

If you truly want to launch like a bat outta hell, then the only way to do that is to give it more revs before engaging the clutch. With AWD, you don't have to give it a lot of revs, just around 2000 should be plenty quick enough.

But for quick left/right turns, you can just do what the cow said, just no gas launch to roll up a little and engage 1st completely then its just like an automatic, mash and go.

Think of the no-gas launch as the equivalent to the "automatic creep" that happens when you let off the brake in a slushbox.

The legitimate street use for a really aggressive launch is pretty limited. For an interstate-quality highway you have an entrance ramp/acceleration lane and how close you come to your best theoretical sixty-foot time is going to be in the realm of rounding error when it comes to whether you can get your speed appropriate to merge with existing traffic. For anything else, you're usually turning onto the road and you're not going to be able to put your maximum power to the ground until you stop turning (by which point you should also be done with the launch).

I don't understand, "With AWD, you don't have to give it a lot of revs..." The advantage of AWD in this context is that it can put more power down before the tires break loose. It is the AWD vehicles that can best benefit from the truly abusive high-rev launches...That's how the magazines got the infamous 5.4s 0-60 from the original WRX. It is true, you don't have to give it a lot of revs (quicker clutch travel can counteract a stronger throttle tip-in and keep engine RPM at or near idle), but AWD doesn't have anything to do with that observation.

[MFan]

The legitimate street use for a really aggressive launch is pretty limited. For an interstate-quality highway you have an entrance ramp/acceleration lane and how close you come to your best theoretical sixty-foot time is going to be in the realm of rounding error when it comes to whether you can get your speed appropriate to merge with existing traffic. For anything else, you're usually turning onto the road and you're not going to be able to put your maximum power to the ground until you stop turning (by which point you should also be done with the launch).

I guessed you have never driven on the "old" Pasadena freeway out here in SoCal? Freeway entrances are from a dead stop and you have 5 feet to get to 60mph.

[minishadow]

I guessed you have never driven on the "old" Pasadena freeway out here in SoCal? Freeway entrances are from a dead stop and you have 5 feet to get to 60mph.

Similar situation on many northern state and southern state pkwy's here.

I've been trying the recommendations on this thread, Improving with practice...

[Squint]

Similar situation on many northern state and southern state pkwy's here.

I've been trying the recommendations on this thread, Improving with practice...

Keep going, Allen Iverson!

[theholycow]

The legitimate street use for a really aggressive launch is pretty limited.

Limited but not completely nonexistent. There are rare occasions when you need to jump across hard or wait a really, really long time.

For an interstate-quality highway you have an entrance ramp/acceleration lane

Skip to :46

I don't understand, "With AWD, you don't have to give it a lot of revs..." The advantage of AWD in this context is that it can put more power down before the tires break loose. It is the AWD vehicles that can best benefit from the truly abusive high-rev launches...That's how the magazines got the infamous 5.4s 0-60 from the original WRX. It is true, you don't have to give it a lot of revs (quicker clutch travel can counteract a stronger throttle tip-in and keep engine RPM at or near idle), but AWD doesn't have anything to do with that observation.

We had a discussion about this before. I attempted to point out that the only mechanical/driving difference between AWD and 2WD is traction (and a negligible amount of drivetrain inefficiency, so any launch that doesn't break traction is exactly the same between AWD and 2WD...

[daleadbull]

If you truly want to launch like a bat outta hell, then the only way to do that is to give it more revs before engaging the clutch. With AWD, you don't have to give it a lot of revs, just around 2000 should be plenty quick enough.

But for quick left/right turns, you can just do what the cow said, just no gas launch to roll up a little and engage 1st completely then its just like an automatic, mash and go.

Think of the no-gas launch as the equivalent to the "automatic creep" that happens when you let off the brake in a slushbox.

The legitimate street use for a really aggressive launch is pretty limited. For an interstate-quality highway you have an entrance ramp/acceleration lane and how close you come to your best theoretical sixty-foot time is going to be in the realm of rounding error when it comes to whether you can get your speed appropriate to merge with existing traffic. For anything else, you're usually turning onto the road and you're not going to be able to put your maximum power to the ground until you stop turning (by which point you should also be done with the launch).

I don't understand, "With AWD, you don't have to give it a lot of revs..." The advantage of AWD in this context is that it can put more power down before the tires break loose. It is the AWD vehicles that can best benefit from the truly abusive high-rev launches...That's how the magazines got the infamous 5.4s 0-60 from the original WRX. It is true, you don't have to give it a lot of revs (quicker clutch travel can counteract a stronger throttle tip-in and keep engine RPM at or near idle), but AWD doesn't have anything to do with that observation.

My bad about the AWD comment, I meant to say the AWD model of the Mini Countryman comes with a lot more torque than the base model thus not requiring a ton of revs to get going. I also had a train of thought that AWD plus high rpm launch = drivetrain strain (since its much harder to get the tires to spin in a AWD car). I combined both those train of thoughts together to make a statement that didn't make sense. lol

As far as really having to launch to merge into a highway, like others have said there are a few situations that can come up on the street. For example, there was some construction work on a ramp leading to a local highway, so what they did was put a stop sign at the end of the ramp. When its really busy during rush hour, you have to launch pretty aggressively from a dead stop if you want to fit in a gap and avoid having to wait for 5 minutes to merge.