Hey everyone, as the title says I'm new here! I'm looking to purchase a 2015 Mini Cooper S in volcanic orange, its auto transmission and has leatherette, premium package, armrest, and LED headlights and fog lights. I'm currently trying to decide between this and the VW GTI. Now I know the GTI is a good car but I didnt really "feel" anything on the test drive. I LOVED the Mini and really want to choose it!! I'm only concerned a little bit about the reliability, I have read stories about new ones leaving people stranded and things. I plan to keep the car 5, maybe 6 years. Coming from my Lexus is350 which has been very reliable and never given me one problem I just worry a little bit about the Mini. Are their any common problems I should know of? Should I go into this expecting many problems to come from the car? Anything else I should know about the cars? I really do love the Mini I just don't want to make a mistake.

Any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

The reliability issues with the brand are greatly overstated.

 

It's a new model, and at this stage it's hard to see where exactly problems are going to arise, if at all.

If history is any indication, there will be some percentage of owners with some kind of serious problem. A larger group will have minor niggles. And the vast majority of people will have no real issues at all.

I've owned two VW's, and still think back to my Scirocco with fondness. But this car is pretty awesome. Hard not to recommend it.

 

Never had any issues, I drive it pretty hard and lots of highway miles, again, not one single issue. The dealers are also EXTREMELY friendly and helpful if something were to every happen. Never any worries

 

The first minor niggle was weeping washer jets.

 

Sold my 2009 MCS with 65K miles after 5 years 8 months of ownership.

No non-warranty repairs. Only the normal maintenance items after the 3 yr MINI paid maintenance.

It probably would have needed the walnut shell carbon cleaning in about another 5K miles -- I could tell it was getting fouled (no check engine codes being thrown).

Owned my F56 for nine days. I hope I get similar results...

 

Thank you everyone! Its good to know the problems aren't quite as common as they seam. I know all cars are going to have little things here and there, I just didnt want to buy one expecting 1,000 problems. I'm going back to my Mini dealership on Monday, planning on sealing the deal then! Does anyone know how much of a discount if any I could expect to get on the car? I know they are new models for 2014/2015 and Mini doesn't usually tend to mark their cars up too high. But should I push for any discount?

 

Any trade in? If yes, it complicates determining whether you got a discount on the new car unless you negotiate new car price saying no trade, then bring trade in.

Assuming you are in Georgia, you can take the online course her for $65 https://driversed.com/georgia/insurance-discount.aspx and get a coupon for $500 off -- but need make sure 2015 Hardtop qualifies (MINI site is different in exclusions on 2015 Hardtop then the coupon states). If you use BGoogle, you can find a 50% off coupon, so it would be $32.50 for the online course.

I'd like to believe you can negotiate $500 to $1000 off at the dealer, but ATL may be a different market than SoCal.

But in general, MINI discounts at the start of the year on the Hardtop are going to none to small.

There are exceptions, and you should always negotiate hard.

Also, check out TrueCar and see what it shows for your area.

Keep us posted on how it plays out.

The F56 is a fun car to drive, and a very sweet car IMHO.

 

Some people get up to $1000 discount + additional promotional discounts run by MINI.

I got $250 off (mentioning Costco member) + $500 driversed.com from MSRP.
And then, of course remove dealer prep fee $395.

Check the promotions, and don't trust the numbers you get from the finance manager or the sales man (or what they call motoring assistant here).

 

Always date the Redhead.

 

Ok great thanks for that info! Ill do that right now! And yes I am trading my fully loaded 2013 Lexus IS350 with 16,000 miles on it. Ive had many dealerships look at the car and Mini offered me the most at $31,750. The Mini i'm looking at stickers at $29,500. VW discounted the 2015 GTI SE with lighting package to $27,000 down from $31,000 but they would only give me $26k for my Lexus. Doesn't matter anyway since i'm going with the Mini I do love the Lexus, but right now for me I need something better on gas thats still fun, and for driving feel nothing else I've looked at has come anywhere near the Mini.

 

I just picked up my first MINI yesterday. Horror stories be damned! I ignored them. Life's too short to worry about something that may never happen. Besides the 3rd generation is a whole new car - who knows what it'll bring? Experiences are what make up life. Go for it and let us know what YOU think.

 

Sometimes I question the reliability of the owners. How many of these complaints are "operator error". I wonder.

 

My wife recently bought a 2015 Justa and we've been waiting for 2 months for delivery.. I had my first chance to give it a decent drive this weekend getting it tinted. Here are two options I would not be without on a Mini...

- LED Headlights with cornering lights. The LED headlights are awesome at night. Better than my Xenon's. The cornering lights are a great addition. They illuminate to the side when you turn the wheel a certain degree, or while at a stop sign/light, you can turn the wheel and easily see pedestrians, curbs, pot holes to the side. Great option.

- HUD. Mini's implementation of this is great. When navigating it puts your direction and distance to next turn and which direction it is. Road names, exit diagrams. So good you don't need the Navi display on the main screen. When you use the voice commands it shows you what you are asking for in a little ballon. BTW the voice recognition is very good. They do not use the windshield as the reflector, it has a little screen that pops up, but this means we can tint the windshield which we did without impacting the HUD. GET THE HUD!

- The LED fog lights are nice but they ARE NOT HALO LIGHTS. We ordered the LED fogs thinking they were like the picture on the configurator, they are not. Mini tells us those were just for illustration, and not how they actually looks. I think that is very poor since some Minis do have Halo LED fog lights. The F56 DOES NOT. If you want the fogs get them, but don't expect them to look like the website. We were very annoyed, that is the only reason we ordered them

 

Good to know, thanks!! The Mini won't be my daily driver, it will be my weekend "fun" car. Thats what I had intended for my Lexus, but its overall too similar to my current DD, plus its awful on gas. So considering I will not be driving it every day I didnt feel I needed all of the features, but I will look into that HUD. I have LED headlights on my DD and know they are amazing, I wouldn't buy the Mini or any car in the future without them. Thanks for the info!!

 

The only downside to the HUD, like many HUD displays, is that it doesn't like polarized sunglasses. So I have a pair of non-polarized sunglasses in the wife's car when I drive it. Or when she lets me

 

I don't think you can go wrong with either car, but for me - the Mini has more soul and should prove to be a better longterm purchase (I love it so much my eyes don't stray!).
I had two GTI's - a 2010, then 2012. I had the latter tuned and was thinking about suspension upgrades to make it "handle more like a Mini". But then the NEW Mini arrives and it has the VW refinement + soul and it's truly wonderful. Especially with the dynamic damper control - and I can't wait for some aftermarket exhaust upgrades!

I don't think it's possible to completely "mini"fy a GTI in the way I wanted. Yet the Mini lacks nothing the GTI has - except Hp output etc that doesn't matter to me (no nearby autobahn). Not to mention I couldn't/wouldn't want to spend on a car assembled in Mexico. Euro pricing means I'd like my car to be born in Europe.
One further note, when I owned my GTI there were all sorts of GTI forum vehicles with issues. I was expecting my water pump to fail anyday. With the Gen 7 i have heard of turbo failures.
If you want reliability, walk away from VW and Mini and head to your nearest Honda dealership. That Honda Civic SI is apparently fun. Or you could follow your heart and join the Mini fray

 

Just throwing in my two cents. I have had my F56 2014 VO MCS since April and I have 5,000 miles on it. I only had one small hickup with needing a system update and the dealership took care of it within 24/hrs. Otherwise this car has been a dream. When you read forums people are more likely to come on to complain then to praise a car. I know for me I come on here to be in on the know on what can happen. I personally would always pick the MINI over the GTI.

 

Well since you asked for opinions, I guess now would be a good time to share my experience with the brand.

I purchased a previously owned '07 MCS with about 42k miles. Almost fully loaded, the first owners picked every single feature possible short of MINI Connected and Nav. Drove perfectly for the first year and a half and I absolutely loved it. Then the timing chain recall happened and I brought it in to the dealership for service (right before this, we had to replace the rear wiper motor which was $500 and my dad broke my passenger side visor which was $175). After the service was done, the car drove fine again. Then winter hit. Somehow, snow got up and under my car and all over the engine bay. Now, I've parked my car in parking lots and outside during blizzards before and have never had this issue. I found it a little coincidental that right after they had taken my car apart to replace the timing chain, that this happened. Well I got in my car, attempted to start it and nothing happened. No turn over, nothing. So I pop my hood and notice the snow. Because I hadn't noticed it before I tried to start it, I shorted out my ECU. $1300 to replace. There were a few other repairs here and there but considering I was still working on my Associate's Degree, my husband and I had just moved in together (dating at the time), we just couldn't afford these repairs. So we traded the car in for a 2012 GTI that was still under factory warranty and only had 19k miles on it.

The GTI lasted six months before we also traded that car in. I just didn't enjoy driving it. While it was fast and the interior was definitely nice, it didn't have the same feel that the MINI had. I didn't smile as much while getting in it or looking for it in the parking lot....

Fast forward to today and I'm back into a MINI. This time, a 2011 JCW with extended bumper to bumper warranty. I definitely learned my lesson. If you are seriously considering a MINI and you are worried about reliability, regardless of what anyone on here says, do yourself a favor and get some type of extended warranty. If you never end up using it, at least you had a good experience. If you do end up needing it, at least you won't come to eventually hate the brand and you're able to enjoy being a MINI owner

 

In Georgia of the 2 main Atlanta dealers; Global MINI offers "True Car" pricing. It's not much of a discount but it's better than nothing. MINI typically does not discount much but if you haggle a little you might get some "extras" thrown into the deal (accessories and such). Also consider looking at the next 2 closest dealers... MINI of Birmingham and Century MINI. Both are easy drives from Atlanta and will do a trade-in appraisal via email. I've purchased from both out of state dealers with great success. PM me if you need a MA recommendation.

 

Nice synopsis LYL, but the OP was specifically asking about the F56 model, not former models. Some of the new F models had some programing issues including low idle marks which is rectified through programing...

 

Very true. I can't give input on reliability on the new models, especially since I have not owned one. I can however, remind the OP that first year models for any cars do tend to have more issues than later models, since the kinks haven't had time to be re-worked. With my '07 MCS being a first year model, I just wanted to let him know that I definitely had issues.

 

Forums are always the worst at making reliability issues seem overstated. Anyone that has an issue will immediately come here to look for people with similar issues / to find answers.

MINI's aren't the most reliable cars in the world, but they're made to the same specifications as every other car manufacturer. They're no less reliable than BMW's, for certain. I think a big part of why they get such a bad rap is that the owners are so attentive to issues (read: ****) that we rack up the service inquiries on minor things. For example: rattles, weeping wiper ducts, slightly misaligned hoods / boot doors. The types of things that aren't really related to reliability but get lumped in with them because the service department has to fix them.

I know I personally have a couple of things to talk to the service person about the first time I take it in already, though in truth my car is perfectly reliable.

 

So it's no different from any other car manufacturer forums. Saying people only complain on forums is a moot point.

More complaints per total cars sold (I don't know the numbers for MINI) would mean the brand has some issues. Of course there are some exceptions, such as luxury brands where owners don't care that much.

I never owned a MINI so I don't have personal experience, but looking at forums, yeah, MINI looks like the worst I've seen (I only know Hyundai, Mazda, Saab).

 

It's not. As I mentioned in another thread I have a '14 Silverado (fortunately problem-free), but the two principal forums for these are LOADED with complaints about vibration, transmissions, and the AFM (V4 - V8 switch). Among other things. But what's worse, is that it seems that a majority of GM dealers won't even TRY to fix these alarmingly common problems and some customers have even been blackballed so that no dealer will work on their vehicle. By comparison, the Mini forums are pretty tame, and on balance the dealers aren't any worse than average. Not that "average" is good, of course.