I went to a Launch Party yesterday. The dealer was talking about a delay in delivery due to the factory switching from painting black/white roof colors to matching body/roof colors for a period of time. This will delay delivery of cars with black/white roofs until July build. Anyone heard the same? Or is this just an issue with dealer allocation?

 

Its true. I can't figure out why a contrasting roof would delay production. I'm sure its not a part availability issue, so not sure why there would be a hold up.

 

Those robots are forming a union. They want overtime or an extra robot to spray the roofs a different color. Next it will be one color per week...the rot has set in in Oxford!

 

Add an extra step or two in the production process and you're crank out fewer cars. If you're running a manufacturing plant, making the identical thing, no deviations, is most efficient, and the plant will run smoothly.. Let the marketing people allow changes, and things get complicated and slow down. There must be a backlog of orders. The Dutch plant will help.

MINI says: "There are more than 10 million ways to design a MINI." Think of all the logistics problems that can cause.

 

torpeau - don't by that argument. You guys saw the video of the cars being assembled right? they way these cars are made I doubt a roof color would slow it down. Roof has to be painted either way and the body color comes no where near that so masking can be rough. The black mirror caps are pre-painted. Any additional part (EG. HUD, CD Player, Ashtray) is another step at some point down the line.
I bet there is another reason....

 

I'll bet you've never been in a factory where there was a backlog of orders and you were being told to catch up or else. If you can, you do what you can to simplify things. The fewer hours to make a car, the better off you are.

 

I'm sure it slows it down some, but Mini's whole thing is how you can customize your own ride.....if they can't produce the cars the way they advertise them to be so customization then they need to rethink either advertising or manufacturing processes!

its a load of BS already be back logged.

 

That's probably why they're going to make cars in the Netherlands very soon.

So maybe they guessed wrong. Maybe initial sales are way over their original estimates. After the pipeline is full and they've caught up, things will get back to normal.

 

There should be no way a roof color is slowing down production.. The Oxford plant is totally designed for every combination possible..

 

Not rocket science, it would appear that either there is a bottleneck or two somewhere in the factory or demand is well over their projections, so they are trying to streamline production to compensate.

 

Really. It has to take some amount of additional time to do a two color paint scheme. Even with robots doing the spraying, there has to be a certain amount of additional work in masking so to eliminate overspray. That being said, it is a Mini staple to do the contrasting roof colors on their vehicles so they should be set-up to where that doesn't impact they're delivery schedule. My guess is they've had a lot more demand than anticipated and the two-tone excuse is an easy way of them saying "we goofed" without using those words.

 

The Oxford plant does run like a well oiled machine even with all the various things one can have done to there MINI. They just need to get in there groove..get some of the bugs worked out.. Then those F56s will be rolling right along! Im sure the different roof color does take a bit more time but as well as that factory is run they are on top of it! Have any of you watched the Oxford plant in operation? Its amazing! Good luck to all your new F56s! And a speedy build.

 

Don't forget that oil filter housing/gasket problem -- that could have slowed production. They could be trying to catch up from that. They could be taking other steps to speed production that we aren't aware of.

 

body color master race

 

I gave my dealer the specs on my car on Saturday. They got back today and said there was a hold on contrasting roof paint and the HK radios. I will wait for what I really want.

 

That's true I forgot about the oil filter housing gasket problem..along with the HK upgrade. So im sure with things like this along with possible paint delays it does all add up. But I forgot to mention the demand has to be pretty great also not from just returning MINI buyers but I think a lot of first time buyers are jumping in now.

 

That's me. I had never remotely thought of getting a MINI until I read on this forum about the upcoming F56. When I sit in mine in a few days, it'll be the 3rd MINI I have ever sat in.

Surprisingly, my wife thought MINIs looked cool which prompted me to find this forum.

 

Well glad to hear your joining the MINI family! Ive owned the R53, R56 and Im sure I will be in the F56 as well. No matter what MINI people drive Ive always fancied the cars. Im always happy to hear when new people join the family no matter what model year they have or want. I think the F56 should be a pretty good bullet proof car. Many new updates and features. Now that the power plant is a BMW im sure that also puts peoples minds at ease a bit with being a more reliable motor.. Hope everything goes smooth for you! Enjoy!

 

Same here. Always been a VW man, myself, but was won over by the crazy Brit. Ordered my first Mini today in BRG. After being told I may have to wait as long as October for a white roof, I opted for body matching. I will likely just get the roof vinyl wrapped. Really looking forward to getting acquainted with the new ride.

 

Yet another ex VW/Audi fan (two GTIs, an Eos and TTS) crossing over. Despite the excellent reviews for the new GTI and the Audi A3 being crowned World Car of the Year! Serious competition yet the F56 tastes seriously better! Also, VW has done itself no favors by delaying the release of the Mk7 to North America c/w Europe. I call that a fail.

 

I'm also going with production numbers for the delay. Contrasting roofs have to be masked off after being painted their body colour and go through the paint process again. This does add a considerable amount of time in the body shop.

There are also plenty of parts delay that customers never notice. We had more issues than you'd think per day that would delay productions, only certain configurations are affected though.

At the last high end British manufacturer I worked at we had some cars delayed for a week or two because or very small problems. The delay sometimes compounded because no one would know where the car was stored.

 

So is the Paint Delay for a mixed roof/body combo? My car is going to be all Black, body & roof. That would mean no Black or White cars would get produced. Correct? Since they would always have a White or Black combo on the car. Or is the White and Black Top paint a different Paint code/mixture?

-Tej

 

What you're getting is a body colored roof. The black roof color for non-black cars is a different paint code than yours.

 

The wording on the document that announced the delays was "Contrasting Roof/Mirrors" so your black car with matching roof/mirrors is not contrasting, you should be OK.

 

I still am surprised about this type of delay.. Ive never heard of it before during the prior years. Makes me wonder what the ratio is for one solid color MINIs to contrasting colored roof MINIs.