Funny that this dealership pays to sponsor this section and doesn't bother to respond. Glad my MINI dealer seems to be a diamond in the rough. One of my top three car buying experiences.

 

I tend to sympathize with the PO's situation as I too have concerns over how my dealership will respond should I be so unfortunate as to have a timing chain failure down the road (even though I am under four more years warranty).
Recently we brought our Mini into the dealership for maintenance and to check the engine for a very pronounced "cold start rattle" that had developed.
The maintenance manager told me they had checked the Mini and found everything normal with the rattle being normal. I responded that since we had four years of warranty left (Factory + Mini Next warranty), we would just keep an eye on it and wait and see.
The Maintenance manager then informed me that all the timing chain problems were due to not keeping correct oil levels and as long as we kept the proper oil level in our Mini we would not have any timing chain issues.
Needless to say this was a little disconcerting as it would appear that should we end up having a timing chain failure down the road, the dealership's position would be that such failures are caused by the owners not keeping proper oil levels in their Mini.
We are currently giving serious consideration for selling our Mini.
Given this are there any Mini enthusiasts out there who would be interested in a really nice low mileage " Justa" mini with four years warranty remaining? Seriously, we would consider a reasonable offer.

 

I've been saying for a long time that these extended oil change intervals are intended to make the vehicle eventually break. I'm sorry but there's just no way waiting 8k+ miles to change the oil is good for an engine.

 

While I am sure that some timing chain failures could have been caused by running without proper oil levels, after reading hundreds of postings related to this, I am convinced that even with proper oil levels maintained timing chain failures do and will continue to happen.
Certainly the poor dip stick design coupled with Mini's tendency to use oil and recommended long oil change intervals adds substantially to the problem.