Getting close to 2 years with my Clubman! It's back in at the dealer today for regular service, and for my annual let's-*****-about-the-same-things-I-bitched-about-last-year event.

Because none of my complaints are ever reproducible.

#1 complaint: clutch shudder. Occasionally when starting from a dead stop, I get a nasty shudder in the clutch in the second half of the pedal travel (that is, after you are moving, but before you've fully engaged the clutch). I was convinced that the clutch disk had a bad surface or a bad spring, but more recently I've been thinking that maybe it's an engine mount on its way out.

Anyway, on the test drive with the shop foreman, he acknowledged that they are starting to see engine mount issues -- mostly on the automatics, they seem to take longer to start failing on the manual transmission cars. But he thinks that's what's going on with my car, so, hopefully, they'll replace it/them and this most annoying problem will go away.

#2 complaint: the Sirius satellite reception is terrible. In my other two cars, I have XM and Sirius/XM. This one is Sirius. It's all the same company these days, I don't know what's different about the three services (but they do have slightly different channel lineups). In any case, this car has service dropouts all over the place, including 4 or 5 spots on my daily commute. My other cars only dropout in tunnels or parking garages. Last time, they said, "it's fine." THIS time, the foreman tells me that they have service bulletins from MINI NA explaining the issue and that there's nothing they can do.

He gave me copies of the bulletins. The first one explains that due to new cellular frequencies, used for WCS (Wireless Communications Service) and mobile broadband radio, interference is becoming more common.

The second bulletin is more interesting, but confusing. It explains that XM service uses geosynchronous satellites (over the equator, so low to the horizon in northern areas), while Sirius uses HEO (highly elliptical orbit) satellites, so not so low -- so, better reception.

Starting in April 2016, MINI hardware switched to the XM satellites from the Sirius satellites -- therefore, worsening reception. The bulletin asks MINI owners to provide specific dropout locations to MINI Customer Relations, who will provide it to SiriusXM, with the intent of convincing SiriusXM to install ground-based repeaters.

I think I'll try to get Sirius to refund me some money based on this.

#3 Rattle in the overhead console. Last time they said "not reproducible" and sent me on my way. This time, on the test drive with the shop foreman, it happened right away and I showed him how I stopped it (by just pressing forward on the roof console). He said I'm not the first one and they'll pack it with felt tape.

#4 Cosmoline stains on the front fender trim. Someone here said they just got their dealer to replace the front fender trim altogether. Mine told me that they can't do anything in the winter now, but in the spring when it's warmer, they'll try to clean it (and if they can't, they'll replace the trim).

And of course, they're going to perform the brake light recall. Yay.

 

+1 on the Satellite radio reception issues. While not terribly on the whole, it is annoying as the reception is quite weak. I lose reception at least for a moment or two around 2 to 3 times on my daily commute which is only 5 miles one way. There are 2 areas near my home where it always loses signal and there aren't any very tall buildings nearby. Its a suburban area with a good deal of one story storefronts, but nothing you'd think would disrupt the signal.

 

Pulled one of the bulletins from the interwebz. The other, newer one eludes me, although I have a copy that the shop foreman printed for me this morning. Says basically says the same thing -- tough noogies.

 

Ahh, here's the newer one.

 

In better news, they agreed to replace my lower engine mount -- so I'm driving a '17 Justa Hardtop automatic loaner this weekend. Hopefully the new mount fixes the clutch shudder, and maybe even the occasional rough restart from auto-start-stop. I usually only notice the restart when sitting idle and it decides to restart to run the A/C or something. If it restarts when the clutch is in, then it's naturally a lot smoother.

 

As I previously reported on another thread, during my scheduled service visit last month, in addition to the DME updates, without any pushback I got this in response to my simply saying there were some cosmoline stains on the front wheel arch covers:

Replace Left and Right Front Wheel Arch Covers Parts 51-77-7-373-335 and 336.

In addition, without my even knowing I had a problem, they did this:

SIM 31 03 15 - Removed and replaced LF/RF Wishbone Control Arms. Swapped Control Arm Bushings to new wishbone control arms. Performed 4 wheel alignment as per repair instructions. Part 31-12-6-879-843 and 844 Control Arm with Rubber Bushing 311020.

 

Oh, and this is a bit embarrassing. I complained about an intermittent rattle in the front passenger seat back.

If you give the passenger seatback at firm whack, it sounds like the innards of the seatback are rattling. Turns out it's the seat belt buckle occasionally hitting the door pillar. -- if you move the seat belt a bit so the buckle isn't tapping against the door pillar, rattle goes bye-bye.

They were very nice about it. No idea what they had to say behind my back, but, apparently I wasn't the first Clubman driver to experience this, as they knew what it was immediately.

 

This happened to me all the time on my F55 too when my wife would fling her seatbelt off in a way that seemed to always end up perpendicular to the B-pillar, causing it to rattle.

 

Well, that almost makes me feel better. But you figured it out for yourself, whereas I complained to the dealer, confidently explaining to the service guy what the problem with the seat back was....

 

My wife CAN NOT get out of ANY car without magically twisting a seat belt. I'm not even sure how she does this, but she IS consistent...

 

+ 2 on fairly bad reception, esp. compared to my '12 Clubman S....
Like the OP, I now know exactly where I'm going to lose signal/music in my daily commute.... And as they also noted, with my now gone 2012 MINI, it was rare to lose Sat. Radio.....

 

Reviving an old thread, just got my '18 F54 JCW and so far the most irritating thing is the lackluster reception on the satellite radio. I have a 30-45 min commute right through the middle of Los Angeles and it cuts out consistently every free minutes and sometimes does not recover for a few seconds or longer My previous cars have had much better reception, and the other car in our household, a late model Mercedes, has much better signal retention on the same drive. Haven't bothered the dealer yet, but it sounds like that won't help anyway.

 

[QUOTE lackluster reception on the satellite ][/QUOTE]

I feel your pain my reception also is terrible in plain english it just sucks compare to other cars that we have in the household.