After getting over the shock of the potential bill for brakes and tires from the Nederlander BMW folks, I contacted Brian Porta of Hendricks Mini, Charlotte, NC to ask him about the possiblity of MiniUSA honoring my warranty once I return to the States. Frankly, if that wasn't gonna happen, I was going to forfeit the remainder of my "warranty" with the Nederlanderers and do the maintenance myself, as much as I could, especially the brake pads and BBK. Brian talked to the higher ups in MiniUSA about my question and the response was good based off of the following assumptions:

1. Service member serving overseas
2. US spec Mini
3. Purchased through a military sales program

Upon my DEROS, I'll contact Brian (probably in person, too!!) and he'll start the process of transfering my VIN to the US warranty system.

So, good news and bad news. The Nederlanderer warranty is good for two years and who knows how many Ks (they couldn't tell me). The US maintenance is good for 3 years, 36k miles. The subsequent manufacturer's warranty is 4 years, 50k miles. As of this morning, Maggie has 23340 miles in her first 11 months, so I won't get too many benefits from either the Nederlander or US warranty. But at least I know! Now for the bad-er news. I'm probably gonna have to suck up the costs of doing business with Nederlander BMW-types. Therefore, after much (and I do mean MUCH) haggling and pestering, I was able to drag out of the Nederlanderers that to replace the front and rear brake pads and wear sensors will run me about ~€350/$472!!! I'll just TireRack the wheels and do those locally. If I could figure out how to deal with those wear sensors, I just might put in some EBC Yellow stuff pads myself. Where's that -10/Haynes for Maggie...?

Regardless, I thought that this was pretty good information for those "normal folks" who don't put 60-80 daily driving miles on their Coopers!!

Cheers!!

 

Thanks for the post. I'm right at 13K on mine. Hopefully I will fall under the US warranty and maintenance program next time she needs TLC.

Do you know when your DEROS is? If its soon, I'd hold off till you get back to US. But that also means holding off driving long miles. An impossible feat and very tough todo. I would know.

 

RudyT, I'm only 18 months into a 24-36 month trip so that just ain't gonna happen!! You'll be about the same distance from Flow Mini in Winston-Salem that I was from Hope Mills to Charlotte!! Enjoy the drive! Dunno how those guys are way up north like that but Hendricks was real good to me.

Cheers!!