I'm in the process of purchasing a 2008 Clubman; my mechanic is warning me that MINIs in general are disasters waiting to happen, so if this blows up on me, I"m gonna feel like a "maroon" (Bugs Bunny reference here). He warns specifically of fuel pump, timing chain, and dealer attitude toward warranty issues. I can still pull out of this deal if needed.

It is a manual tranny with 46K on the clock. I'm thinking it is a lease-end return, though it could be a repo. Seems priced right at $18,500 I'm in Phoenix, and it's up in Seattle. My son has test driven and inspected it and it has his approval. Any words of wisdom or warnings?

TIA,

Karl Wolz

 

A word of warning: change your mechanic.

MINIs wouldn't rate so highly in reliability surveys if what he said was true.

 

I appreciate the person from the UK who commented on MINI reliability but have you asked the owner or other owners why they are selling their MINI with 46K miles right before the warranty runs out? IMO, it's a question worth asking...

 

By posting in this forum, I believe that's what I did!

 

I wish!

Disclaimer: This was a fairly useless survey. Owner with questions about how to operate the seats and radio **** were the primary "problems". However reports like this from JD Powers will create perceptions in peoples minds.

 

Karl - Your mechanic isn't completely off base; MINI has had problems with timing chains and high-pressure fuel pumps. If you poke around the forums, you'll find plenty of reference to them. There are fixes for both problems which should be covered under warranty. If the car you're considering is not an S (turbo version), then I don't believe either of these problems is likely to affect you, as they were mostly (if not completely) confined to the turbo'd engine.

Something you can do is check the car's service history; given the VIN any MINI dealer should be able to provide you with a list of all the service and repairs accomplished on the car by a MINI dealer. Since it's still under warranty, most of the work that it got was probably done at a dealer.

Another thing you might do is check with your local MINI club; I'm pretty sure there is one in Phoenix: http://www.dynamicminicollective.org/; they can probably point you towards a local independent shop that works on MINIs that could give you another opinion on likely problems that you may experience. Along that same vein, is there an independent MINI shop in the Seattle area that could do a pre-purchase inspection on the car? That might give you some peace of mind about the car and could be money well spent. Good luck!

 

Or have the MINI dealer do a pre-purchase inspection, if anyone will find everything wrong with the car, they should. They know where all the skeletons are hidden....

The HP fuel pump has a factory warranty extension to 10 years 100K, so no worries there.

The tensioner itself is the major cause of those timing chain problems, if nothing else, buy the newest tensioner and replace it, the part's only about $50 and the labor's about an hour. Peace of mind for under $200, even at the dealership!

I'd also want to know about the clutch, if it's a stick. if it's an auto, no worries there.......

 

On that fuel pump issue, (keeping in mind this is third hand information), my mechanic says that his customer was refused a warranty on the pump because "The customer was not using Shell gasoline". I realize this sounds rather strange, but could there be any reason a dealer would care what brand of fuel is used? I know the MINIs require premium fuel, but ...

 

That's complete BS. Shell stations are not located everywhere a MINI owner lives. For instance, there is not a Shell station within 50 miles of Butte, Montana. That customer should go back to the stealership and tell them to explain why only Shell can be used.

 

Sounds like the dealer was trying to get out of warranty work so they made up a BS excuse, and the customer was too stupid to question it. I would be threatening legal action at this point (hoping to settle out of court and have them just fix the silly thing).