My car has finally arrived at Va Beach dealer yesterday afternoon and will be ready for pick up Sat afternoon. Haven't picked out a name yet but who cares, I've got plenty of time for that. Couldn't ask for better weather. 83 and sunny...... Sold the other ride last night, talk about timing.....

 

Mine's at the dealership today! I should be picking up tomorrow

 

Congrats guys. Mine was supposed to arrive at the dealer yesterday, but per my MA, it is still at the VDC as of this morning.

I'm starting to get a little frustrated. I just want to MOTOR. Is that too much to ask?

 

Small glitch. Thought I'd be cruising on this gorgeous Saturday but now it'll be Monday. Found out 25 Mini's came in and I am number l6 in line to get done for delivery. So it's a few more days of breathing slowly and deeply in anticipation of the final meeting of man and machine. It's been rough the past hours with money in hand and no Mini yet. In the mean time I did get the cleaning supplies ready and the floor dust out of the garage. My neighbor is bothering the heck outta me about what I'm getting but I'm not going to tell. Ha Ha...

 

Did you MA explain to you the prioritization? My MINI Dealer is one of three in IL. I suspect my MINI will not be the only MINI being off-loaded, but I sure would like the priority to be based on order date. 6/11 seemed so long ago...

 

Priority would be great but it's not always the case. If I lived in Charleston, I would love to have my mini delivered (say it was ordered June 1st and someone else's was ordered June 10th in NY) to me first. I feel for the people on the Western side of the country. Well one more day is just about over and one to go before the union takes place. I believe some are motoring now but are enjoying themselves too much to post. LUCKY DOGS!!!!

 

I'd love to be motoring now. I'm hoping to hear from my MA next week. This waiting game isn't for the faint of heart is it?

 

Has anyone going to Charleston been switched over to VDC on the website? I talked to my MA and she said it would be at the VDC on the 10th (today), but I can't think of another ship that it would have been on.

Thanks.
Tonik

08 MCCS Pw/s/s....

 

I don't think I have ever seen OL change a status over the weekend. I am thinking at 12:01 a.m. Tuesday morning the status should change to at Distribution Center. Ironically on Tuesday the MINIs could be trucks dealer bound. OL is such a big LAG!

 

I picked up Ozzy from the dealer yesterday!

I have almost 250 miles on the odometer... just a fifth of the way to the end of the break-in period.

I must say that picking up my MINI was not filled with as much joy as I thought it would have been. Between the trade-in situation, which come squarely on the greedy sales manager's shoulders, and a financing issue, which I take the blame for, it sickened me to speak with either my MA or Sales Manager.

I told my MA that I didn't want any surprises when I arrived for delivery, but she chose not to tell me about all of the add-on services that the finance manager would hit me up for. If I was given advance notice, I may have even purchased one or two, but I will not sign up for any add-on without being given the time to research my options first.

I am not sure what other dealers do, but Inskip will hit you up for the following (may not be complete list):

Extended Warranty
Extended Service Contract
Tire and Wheel Road Hazard Warranty
Lo-Jack
3M protective Film for nose of car

The last gripe I have is that they did not have the gray floor mats (front, rear, boot) and they could not install the sportlink. Really, there is no excuse that they did not have the floor mats. These should have been ordered once the vehicle left production. Because the sportlink requires time to be scheduled with the service department, I can understand that they are limited by the service department schedule, but if the dealer really cared, they would have schedule it when the car arrive at the VDC and not wait until the car arrived at the dealership to schedule it. I am really not all that upset these last two problems, it just exemplifies the lack of care the sales people have after the order is made.

I really kinda of screwed myself in regards to the financing. I was expecting to finance using the MINI Select program. I should have added up the monthly payments and realized that it didn't add up to the cost of the car. Once I realized that there is a balloon payment at the end, I had to scramble for another method of financing. Thanks to the other posts about PenFed, I was able to get a check by the next day (Saturday, nontheless). Thoroughly impressed!

In the end, I have the MINI of my dreams and it won't take long for all of the bad memories of the sales process to fade away!

I cannot WAIT until I can put the pedal to the floor and bring her into the powerband!! Even limiting it to 4500 rpm provides quit a thrill! The weather has be BEAUTIFUL these past two days!

Pictures coming soon!

 

Will anyone be attending the MINIs at Lime Rock on Labor Day?

It is the last non-official day of summer, I cannot think of a better thing to do than spend it on a road trip to watch vintage racers!

 

C O N G R A T S on Ozzy's delivery Saturday. We have a nice break from the humidity right now and are below average temps. What a great few days IT WOULD HAVE BEEN to be motoring topless.
Seems there are more and more Customer Service complaints being posted on NAM.

 

I picked up Big Red on Friday, and spent the weekend zipping all around town and did not stop to post the update here.

I picked up late on Friday evening (the MA said he was on vacation and "unable" to deliver on Saturday, even tho the rest of the Dealership was open). I'm guessing because it was around closing time, I did not get bothered about any other option like DoubleO did. Just handed them the check and I zipped outta there after signing the pink slip. I'm quite happy so far, but I must say, moving from a full-size sedan to a MINI takes a little getting used to.

About the dealer and MA itself, I do have a few things to say. But that's a story for another time. If anyone ever buys from Mini of the Main line, hit me up by PM and I'll give you suggestions.

 

My wife and I were supposed to go to Nantucket that weekend, but I will try to convince her otherwise. I really want to drive my future MINI (if I ever get it, still at VDC per OL) around lime rock!

 

Finally picked up the Cooper S today (Monday). Had a whole 2 miles on the speedo. I've got a whopping 45 now. Probably get a few more in tomorrow while the weather is holding out. Delivery experience was very good and no pressure on the extended stuff as I thought there would be. Very nice handling car. I must have a hugh sign on my house somewhere because five of my neighbors greeted me the minute I drove into the driveway. All admired the looks and options. One particular comment was "don't back this car out into the driveway if you see my wife outside." I guess she wants to trade her BMW suv for a Mini. Anyway, hope the rest of you don't have much longer to wait.....DS/Blk MCS very well equiped...

 

2 Miles?!? Mine had 18! My dealer must have taken mine out for a spin or two! I will take that as a compliment!

I cannot get over how much fun it is to drive! My Ozzy has brought back the memories of when I was growing up and my sister had a Triumph Spitfire, then a TR-6. I had so many good times in those cars.

Yesterday, I filled the tank up for the first time!

 

I know I'm a little late but I really wanted to comment here.

My MA told me straight up, "We only sell MINIs at our dealership, so if we took your car in trade we'd have to have it sent out to get serviced, detailed, etc and then put to auction. I can give you a quote, if you want, but it's not going to be pretty." My car's NADA and KBB were listed at about 8500...I expect I would've been quoted like $6k as well. It has nothing to do with the greed of the dealership (in my case at least), since they won't even put a trade-in into one of the bays to look at.

Anywho, if you didn't sell the Prius yet, I wouldn't think you should have too much trouble selling privately, especially with gas prices as they are.

Glad you're enjoying the new MINI! Congrats!

 

I suppose it depends on the dealership as to what they do with the car. Dealerships won't even touch a car if it is going to auction. In the case of Inskip, they are a group of Mercedes, BMW, Bentley, Porsche, Smart, etc dealers. They have a "Used Car Center" which I assume is where they sell their trade-ins as the lot is filled cars by makers other than what they are dealers for. I seriously doubt, based on experience, that any dealer does any service on a used car, other than a safety inspection. Detail, yes, service, no way.

The issue I had is that the prices I was references were the Trade-in value. I don't expect that the trade value I receive is less than the referenced trade-in value unless there car is in a condition which outside of the condition which the trade-in value kbb or edmunds is calculated on.

I have to disagree that, at least in my case, the dealer is trying to take advantage of the situation. This is no different than the warranties, add-ons, that they don't mention until you are in the office with the finance manager. They don't want you to make an educated decision about these options, otherwise they would tell you about them in advance of physically taking delivery. They want to take advantage of the situation. Before delivery, I even specifically told them I did not want any surprises at deliverly. Maybe they thought I meant the swag...

Apparently, not all dealers are like this. Unfortunately, the dealer I purchased the car from was and as such, I will never buy another car from them. I will sooner drive further to another dealer.

That said, I am giving their service department a chance to prove that they are not of the same ilk as the sales department. So far, so good as I have had it in twice, once for the installation of the Sport-Link and once to have a flat replaced (OUCH!! $$).