Haven't pulled the trigger yet on a deposit, but am *this* close! Wondering if anyone here who has ordered recently has gotten a quote on delivery dates yet. Might have to work with the dealer on my end of lease terms (Oct 2020) before I get the new car delivered, hopefully it won't be an issue since I'll be buying another Mini.

 

I paid the deposit. The sales manager said the plant was closed until August, at which time my order would go into production, with an estimated September delivery.

 

Good, I found another forum to whine on. Here's my first post.

I gave my dealer a $1K deposit in October and another $500 through MINI in early January. My MINI Cooper SE left the factory in mid-June and it's been sitting at the port in Southampton ever since. It must be stuck way back by the fence in the giant MINI/BMW parking lot at the port because SEs built after mine made it onto the boat. Will my car still have enough of a charge to load it onto the boat by the time they've shipped all the cars blocking access to mine? Whaaaaa!

 

You should totally negotiate some kind of loyalty and/or hardship discount...or both!

 

If you currently lease a Mini, you might be able to get them to extend your lease until your new car arrives. I am coming off of a lease on a Smart car and when I asked about extension options Mercedes Benz Financial said they could be more flexible if I was waiting on another car from them.

 

Cowley has been reopen since mid May.

 

I believe a few sites have news articles stating that 11,000 electric cars were made in the plant but also that there is a summer shut down in August.

 

Mine went into production at the end of July. It reached "Quality Check" before the August shutdown.

 

Corporate’s been quoting us 4-6 months from order due to the higher than expected demand and the backlog of orders in general from the Oxford shutdown. My dealer has like 10 in various stages of production and our first two sold ones are on a boat bound for the US.

 

Heads up. BMWUSA isn't doing any discounts or promotions with these (not even employee discount for those eligible). They're sold directly as MSRP only and the dealer gets a flat rate cut and a count increased in their volume, similar to the Oxford Edition car.

To help the OP:
I placed a preorder back in December 2019, Placed my order down in March, and received my car last week. It was the first batch of the MY 2021.

 

I just found out that @cpxchewy is correct. Today I visited the dealer to discuss the details for the SE I ordered last September (exactly 11 months ago, today) and there's no budging on the MSRP. I'll be picking it up in a few days and then MINI of Ann Arbor is closing forever. My SE will be the only one they ever deliver.

However, they gave me a decent $3K trade-in price on my old, beat-up 2010 Insight. Get this, the beating came at 5 mph from the front end of a MINI Cooper that ran into the Insight's rear-bumper, leaving a crack. Because I like MINI Coopers and his damage was worse than mine, I didn't even ask for any compensation. I just let the bummed-out guy drive away. They said my Insight will just go to a dealer auction--I can't believe it will get $3K there (who knows how much life the HV battery still has in it?).

The MINI Central Region Business Manager happened to be visiting MINI of Ann Arbor one last time and she apologized for my long wait, citing the coronavirus as the culprit. The long wait is almost over!

 

Apparently, the long-lead time required is coming down pretty rapidly. We ordered ours on Sep 12th and were notified today that production would start in early Oct, so delivery is likely by the end of the year. Based on this news, the time from order to delivery is pretty much the same as for an ICE MINI.

 

I've seen our local dealer in Denver, CO give discounts on the S E ranging from $500-1000 off MSRP.

 

That's great, especially along with Colorado's generous state incentives! Are they going so far astray of company policy as to offer leases on SEs, too?

 

Nope, buy only here in Colorado.