The loaner car is a Nissan Versa...yuk, but at least we have replacement wheels for now. Still no word on what the problem is with our car. The dealer said they have been running tests, sending the results to Mini, and that the earliest we can expect to have it back is Monday or Tuesday.

 

Sorry to hear about your troubles. Have you had a Lemon Law conversation with Mini?

 

We like the car and would prefer not to have to replace it, but if this continues we may need to look into going that route. Hopefully we will have some word from the dealer today or tomorrow as to why this happened again.

 

Just called the dealer for an update.

This breakdown was also caused by a fuse blowing, but it's a different fuse versus the first two times we were towed in. They replaced the fuse, and BMW had them run some tests, but so far they can't figure out what caused it. Now they are trying to replicate the problem by driving the car until the fuse blows again, and as the SA said "they hope it happens again".

Not exactly confidence inspiring....

 

I would find out which fuze is blowing and keep spares in car. If it happens again replace it. I would not like to get stuck in the middle of a road and wait to get towed

 

The dealer has now had our car two full weeks, and has not been able to figure out what is causing the fuses to blow, and we are completely fed up. Our car has been towed to the dealer three separate times, and as of today has been in the shop for a total of 24 days. So we have mailed to BMW the "last chance" letter required under New Jersey's lemon law. We like the car, but if they cannot fix it properly, it's time for us to move on. They have 10 days from the date they receive our letter to properly repair the car, and if they do not, then we have a cause of action in administrative law court.

 

Other than asking if you survived Sandy unscathed- any response from BMW?

 

BMW did call to confirm receipt of the letter. They said they are still trying to repair the car, and that our letter would be forwarded to their Area Manager.

Thanks, we are better off than many, but still don't have our power back. We are thankful for our generator.

 

Good luck with the car and the snow your getting.

 

8-10 inches in our driveway a week after a hurricane...completely bizarre weather.

Here’s the latest on our car. The dealer called again…someone from the Service Department who I’ve never spoken with before. He says they are still working on the car, but they are confident they will find the issue…says it’s probably something simple like a bad ground that they have overlooked. Then he tells me BMW is willing to give us $2000 as a “settlement to make up for our experience”. Does that sound amazingly too good? Then he mentions one little detail…the offer is in exchange for our signing a “waiver”. So my response is “well that sounds good, so long as our car is really fixed”.

After getting off the phone, I remember another forum member here, pkkirby from South Carolina (who I hope is reading this). He was offered $1000, and the waiver they wanted him to sign would have taken away his Lemon Law rights. He was as incensed as we now are.

So I call back this guy, end up on his voice mail, and I leave a message asking exactly what the waiver is, and if he can email me a copy of it. A different guy who I’ve never spoken to calls me back and leaves me a rambling voice mail which says “BMW won’t give us the $2000 without our "signing something", and we would still have the protection of the warranty on the car. Never does he mention anything about that I would be signing away my Lemon Law rights. Granted I have yet to see the waiver form, but it’s obvious what’s coming.

They must think we are really stupid! Sounds like they are not at all confident they can fix the car, and expect that we will prevail in court if the repair fails.

If the waiver says what we expect, we are certainly not signing it. The caller did everything he could to make it sound like they were doing us a big favor by offering the money…what a joke. After 3 weeks why not just admit they can’t fix the car and offer us a replacement???

I’m sorry, but I have to say I really question the ethics of this company. After watching how they failed to handle the high percentage of power steering pump failures on the Gen 1 cars (including our R53), and now seeing how they handle situations like this, this does not appear to be a trustworthy company at all.

I hope potential Mini and BMW buyers are reading this...

 

Ouch! Maybe time to send a letter to the NJ State Attorney General and cc BMW. I do not like the direction and lack of accontability on BMW's part. May want to drive up to their headquarters and park outside with a big sign!

 

My guess is that there is no legal issue with BMW offering such a settlement (as well as an owner accepting it).

In our case, we would have read the agreement and spotted the problem (and as I said, I have yet seen the actual proposed agreement yet, so i don't know at this point that it says what I suspect it does).

Assuming that the document does in fact force the the owner to waive his Lemon Law rights, if they were ethical people, the proposal should have been presented as "we will pay you $2000 if you agree not to sue us".

We all know people who sign legal documents without reading and/or understanding them, and I suspect they are counting on that.

 

Sounds to me like they are covering their bases to make sure you don't accept the money as settlement and then turn around and sue them anyway.

 

Giving our experience with the car to date, we would have to be absolute fools to accept $2000 in exchange for giving up our rights.

We just want them to fix the car, but if we've given up our Lemon Law rights, and it turns out the car is not fixed, and/or if there's other problems, then we are stuck with a lemon with no remedy other than to try to sell it.

Sure, it's a plus that the warranty is in effect, but look at where that's gotten us thus far.

No way is the $2000 a gesture of good will. They are trying to buy insurance that they won't end up with a car that's titled as a Lemon Law return, and take a much greater loss. If they were confident they can fix it, the car would have been fixed already, and they would not be calling us offering us the money.

 

The dealer Has now had the car for more than four weeks, and called yesterday and told us that they have replaced the fuse box on the car. Hopefully it's finally fixed Once and for all. They asked us to sign an agreement allowing one of the technicians to drive the car home several evenings to confirm that the problem is solved. They want to drive the car 100 to 200 miles to make sure. We also told him that we were getting tired of driving the Nissan versa as a loaner, and asked if we could have a mini instead, and they agreed to give us a mini tomorrow if our car is not ready.

They also asked us again about signing the waiver in exchange for the $2000, and we again asked them to email us the waiver so we can review it. The fact that they still have not shown the waiver to us continues to lead us to believe that it requires us to waive our lemon law rights with respect to this car, And if that is the case, we are certainly not going to sign it. Given that it's taken them four weeks to theoretically diagnose the problem, we are not at all confident that the problem has been Permanently resolved, And we continue to be apprehensive that the real reason they are offering us the $2000 is only because they themselves are not confident that the car is fixed.

 

What a horrible experience. I would take the same approach towards the waiver, no way I would give up my lemon law rights for a mere 2k at this point in the process. I hope your car is fixed and you can get back to motoring.

 

Again, we have not yet seen the proposed waiver (and maybe we never will as I think we have already given them a sense that we won't sign it if it is what we think it is), but we are assuming it's similar to what they they offered Pkkirby in South Carolina.

Assuming it is, we think their trying to describe the $2000 payment as a gesture of goodwill, and not mentioning that it's tied to our waiving our lemon law rights is absolutely underhanded.

 

Thanks for the update, what a mess.

 

Based upon what I have been reading here and elsewhere, the problems with the Countryman appear to be isolated to the All4. My 2012 CM base w/20k has been essentially trouble free. I was considering trading Betty in for an All4 but not now.
Shark715 I am so sorry to hear about your troubles and may they resolve each and everyone of your issues permanently.

 

I don't believe my issues have anything to do with the all wheel drive, but then again it's not yet clear what's wrong with the car. If the problem really was the fuse box, I assume the fuse box is the same for all models. Aside from my issue, it does seem as if the S models (which include the All4 model) might be more trouble prone.

 

I'm sorry to hear of your problems. I had three of the first MINIs in Hawaii when they came out in 2002 and two of them had problems. The last one was an 02 MCS which I sold a year later with 10k on it. I've been out of the fold for 9 years until my mother wanted another one, so I bought her a MCS.

Do not sign anything! Instead, just file your Lemon Law papers. BMW is trying to hold you off with these offers, but without you filing a Lemon Law complaint, they won't do much. When you do file the papers, they will have a meeting with you and the Service Manager and a Regional Rep from MINI. They will put the blame on other factors and try to buy you off without you declaring the car a Lemon.

If you want to talk about this, PM me.

 

Thanks. Hopefully the car is fixed. But if it's not, we have no choice but to go ahead immediately and file for a lemon law hearing. We cannot continue to go on like this. I'm told that the process here in NJ is relatively quick, and that we can expect BMW to agree to buy back the car once we get to the courthouse and they see that they are going to lose in court. I'm also told there is a huge incentive for them to not go through with the hearing because if they lose they have to note on the title of the car that it was a lemon law return.

 

They will either offer to buy your car, or to exchange it for a new one. Many people say to just take the money and run. IIRC, compensation is based on the first time the car went in for the problem, mileage wise.

 

Very informative thread...I am interested to see how this turns out...

 

I know that most people say these stories are rare and I know every car has issues. Some issues are acceptable others are not. Having multiple people report multiple weeks without their car is not acceptable. I am "****" to a fault and have wanted a German engineered car. I have researched and configurated 50 different countryman online. I know 2 people that dont even go to this site that have had multiple issues with their mini countryman within the first year of ownership. This has made me jump ship for now. I am taking delivery of a golf r this afternoon with the hopes that in a year or so when our other car needs trading we can get a base countryman for my wife or a convertible mini. I was ready the pull the trigger but I just cant have a car that unreliable. I know VW has had issues to and the golf r has had some clutch issues for some and the cam follower needs to be checked. This I can live with, but dangerous situations where the car dies repeatedly leaving you stranded is not acceptable. I love the look and the feel of a mini but until they get their crap together I cant take the risk.