Ditto. I happily give up things I want to better the lives of my children. They are grateful and respectful of this and are NOT spoiled brats. If I had sons I might not be as worried about the reliability of a car, but I too have two daughters and feel the same way.

Paul

 

I'm hoping (or more like dreaming?) that my new "blonde looking" Pruerto Rican babe (2014 MCS) is naturally blonde.

 

This talk about reliability is silly considering the very small cross section of owners on this site. Out of all the minis sold we have a handful of people with problems. Unfortunately they fell out of the bell curve.

I asked a tow truck operator recently are there any brands he picks up more than others and he said no. He said he picks up Hondas, Toyotas, BMW etc. the only thing he said was usually when he picks up a Chrysler product there is a pool of oil under it.

 

I've owned Hondas, Fiats, Toyotas, and MINIs.

They have all had their various problems. The Fiats were the worst. The others were all pretty equal.

 

How is it silly?

1. Mini is a boutique brand selling an order of magnitude fewer cars than the big boys

2. Mini owners are more likely to join a club or forum; that kind of goes with the choice of buying into a boutique brand (hence you get much larger percentage of owners talking vs. other brands)

3. There are far more instances of issues being reported from all different sources as mentioned earlier in this thread, not just people seeking online forums as an outlet to complain

4. Your data point of one tow truck driver is not statistically valid and can't be used in a logical argument

 

Funny--just last night I was looking at my car in the garage and thought the color was platinum. In fact, we decided a better name than White-Silver would be Platinum Blonde!

 

I was thinking the same thing.
I don't remember using "tow truck driver's statemebt" as a factor in any equation in my statistics class.

 

TripleTurbo wasn't using the tow truck driver's comment as a statistic. He asked the driver for his opinion, and passed it along. What's wrong with that?

 

 

Who--or what--are they?

 

Go have a look at the GMC/Silverado forums. OMG. You'd think that they'd be broken down left and right, littering the road, with all the complaints posted. (Combined yearly sales ~460,000) Yet I've had two (currently a 2014) of them and neither one has had a single issue. Absolutely stone-reliable. For that matter, out of all the car manufacturers that have made an appearance in the fleet, by far the most problematic has been BMWs, some of which have been absolute horrors. Like the one that, all by itself, set itself on fire in my garage. Quick action prevented the house from burning down. Yes, it was that bad. I have the pics.

However, on balance most vehicles we've owned have had few to no problems.

Anyway, the point is that as several posters have already pointed out, you can't draw too many relevant inferences about reliability from posts to a forum. At best, you might be able to spot some particular trends, e.g. the dripping washer nozzles.

Anecdotally, our Mini now just short of 1000mi, has no issues at all.

 

daffodildeb - "Who--or what--are they?"

 

I withdraw my suggestion.

 

I mentioned the tow truck operator because some here make it sound like everytime he gets a call it's to go pick up a Mini. I've been on many forums and there are always the doom and gloom the sky is falling types.

Also this particular guy had his own towing business for over 20 years. I'd like to look at his records because I think for that amount of time there is some statistics there. No?

 

Nothing wrong with an opinion; it just looked like it was posted as scientific evidence to prove a point.

Yes, statistics can be generated from the sample points this particular driver has experienced over the years. However, I don't believe it to be valid on this international forum because it's extremely unlikely that your city is a perfect microcosm of the rest of the world where Minis are roaming the streets. Example: Many California cities have a disproportionate number of import cars on the road compared to the rest of the country. Tow truck drivers there have all probably towed a Mini at one point. If you asked a tow truck driver in Camden, Arkansas how many Minis he has towed the answer is probably 0.

 

I asked the driver how many Mini's he picks up. He said mine was #3 for the week. Bummer... I asked if it was one of the more frequent needing rescue. Answer was Ford. Of course \Ford probably outsells Mini 100 to 1. In any case, the sample size was ONE - not statistically significant.

Paul

 

Tow-truck guy's statistic doesn't tell anything at all because there are not equal amounts of car brands that are rolling on the roads.

I think MINI reliability is seriously lower than average, and several media reports also confirm that. There's no denying. I despise American cars, so I don't even consider them in my compare list. I had no problems with Hyundai Elantra (2000, and 2007) and my current Mazda (still too early to tell though). I lurk in the Mazda CX-5 forum, and I don't see this many "died" or "check engine" threads there.

It's really scary thinking about engine stopping when driving on a highway. I told my wife about this, that I read several posts about it, and she got really worried. She was imagining the car suddenly stopping in middle of a highway, and I relieved her a bit by telling her it'll be like letting go of the gas pedal, but with only couple pumps on the brake pedal and steering might become really hard if electronic steering motor shuts off too. I just hope these things are software bugs and they get fixed by the time I get my car in late November.

Oh, and these cars shouldn't have rattles. I'm expecting they don't have rattles, but why do I see rattle threads... I mean, it's still a BMW, right?

 

A mini from 1968, one from 1982, one from 2002 and one from 2014.I had never a broke .down.The two first were delicate, the BMW ones had never problems.It were all new ones. Yes I checked always everything myself.

 

I agree I wouldn't have commented if I lived and worked in Camden. However I do work and live in the NYC metro area which I think has a good cross section. Oh well the debate goes on and I just hope we don't see a lot of these "car died" threads.

 

You want to get a little scared? Just look at this:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...nd-issues-357/

Of course as others mentioned, people posting here mainly post to find resolution to problems, not to say how trouble free their cars are. Still an eye opener.

 

Scared. How? It's 30 per page and 11 pages. And let's say every thread has 5 more " oh yeah my car did that too". That's 1650 failures. Now let's see divide that number by the number of minis sold Do you see what a tiny minuscule number that is. Even if you triple that quadruple or even times it by 10 It's. Minuscule in the grand scream of things.

Sent from my iPad using NAMotoring

 

Paul,
How is the fix and the smell?

 

Thanks for asking. My daughter came home for a weekend visit yesterday. The last time she saw the car was October 4th as it was being hauled away. To get home by car is about 4 hours. To get home she got up at 2 am to catch a 4 am bus to Santa Barbara where she boarded a train that arrived in irvine where we retrieved her at 11 am. Needless to say I am being pressured to return the car to her.

Dealing with Mini has been a mixed bag. Lower level people take messages and pass them on often incorrectly. Mid level people call you back, leave a message then are unreachable. About a week ago I asked who was handling you case and got a name. I called him a few times without a return call. My concerns only seemed to be addressed seriously when I called the corporate offices and asked to speak to one of the highevel executives. Of course I didn't get through to him but spoke to an articulate woman who ultimately passed my off to another woman who actually answered her phone. I never have spoken to the person identified asy case manager. I sent a letter to the executive that I attempted to call and I actually received a very cordial email apparent from him although I suspect it is from an assistant although I take the message as coming from him directly.

My wife and I have decided to let her take the car back to school at least till thanksgiving. We don't want her to drive it alone on the 4 hour ride as it hasn't been repaired long enough for me to trust it so my wife will accompany her then take the bus/train back on Monday. We told her to drive it around her college town but not after 9pm or so in the event of a breakdown given the very slow response time of the mini contracted roadside assistance. I bought a new car to prevent these concerns. At thanksgiving break my wife will go back to SLO and they will come home together. During that week I will bring it to the mini dealer and ask that they look for the dye that they put in the oil to find the source of the suspected leak.

If all goes well she will leave the car at home and go back to school for finals and get her car back at Christmas break. After Christmas assuming there have been no problems she will go back to school for winter quarter and be allowed unrestricted use of the vehicle.

The cars are FUN to drive and I believe particularly appealing to young people. I Am a bit bitter that I bought a brand new car with a known defect and the manufacturer had the vehicle during the "second date" when they could have updated the part yet let the car go in the hands of my daughter. When I think of what could have happened to her had the car failed in any way other than it did whe stopped I get sick.

So I am put in the position of dumping the car and taking a huge hit now or trusting that the car is not damaged from operating without oil and letting her use it.

Paul

Typed sitting in my car on my phone. Hopefully it makes sense as I am reading what I am typing only three lines at a time on a tiny screen. May fix post up when we get home tonight.

 

In any follow up, I think one key question we had is what's the status of any burning oil odor? Is that gone?

I'm uncertain if your concern for long term reliability will ever go away -- not saying that a concern would be wrong. But everything I've read is there is no time period, be it one month, three months, six months, one year, two years, or whatever that your concern will disappear.

Add to it that it is you daughter with the car, which ratchets up the concern level an untold amount, I predict that you're getting rid of the car in the next six to twelve months.

But, it terms of dealing with what Mini owes you, or should do, the fact that it is the car for your daughter really has no bearing other than causing additional stress. But, of course it's easier for me to say given that it's not my college age child.

By all means, do keep us posted. You have our sympathy for what you are going through.

 

This car is snowballing problems for you.