I am also a perfectionist, but I'm trying real hard not to get bent out of shape over it. The install was $150, but I mean it was a LOT of work... and it's far from perfect but what can they do about it now? It is what it is unfortunately. :(

 

Yeah, I know it was a lot of work and $150 is a very fair price for that job... especially if it's done right.

I know what you mean... what can be done ? You could get your money back for the install but that doesn't fix those problems. You could remove it but then you've wasted a good deal of money and then you would have to pay for another.

Tough one. Maybe some of those imperfections will work themselves out over the next couple weeks. Especially the bubble(s).

 

Okay, just went out to the garage and took a few shots. These are the problem areas on my vinyl roof, so you can compare these to yours, to maybe help you decide if you can live with yours.

Here's a shot of the antenna base. He did a good job of cutting that out to fit the base very well....



In the first shot, you can see a small crease on the rear edge of the base. You can REALLY see it in this shot, mostly becasue of the light reflection. In person, it's not nearly as noticeable:



And, the corners are evidently tough because none of my four corners are what i would call perfect. Here's one:

 

That's a shame about the imperfections. Can you go back to the installer and point them out, perhaps get him to make them less noticeable? Could be worth a shot.

And with any luck, maybe some of the bubbles will work themselves out.

The first photo you showed looks awesome, and I like the checkered mirrors and scuttles. And isn't that the distance most people will see your MINI?

My father used to have a saying: "Nobody running for his life would notice it." Meaning that imperfections we perfectionists see right away, slide by most onlookers.

CROC 411

 

That's a good point Dragoon. Even the gap on the side isn't very noticable unless you are looking for it. See the side shot I posted. You see something but from a distance it looks like it could be part of the black weather stripping... you get closer and you can see the exposed roof.

Still... the perfectionist in me is going nuts. My wife said to suck it up though cause she's NOT

1. Paying for new vinyl at 260 bucks
2. Wasting the vinyl I paid for by removing it altogether

So I have to learn to love it I guess.

 

I'd be going nuts too and my wife would say the same thing. Funny how MINI motorers are so similar in so many ways.

I'll keep my fingers crossed that some of this works out for you.

CROC 411

 

Another thing -- is the vinyl supposed to be perfectly lined up if you look at it from the front? I don't know what the sheets look like when they come, but a square in one corner is larger than the one on the other side.

 

Sounds like you have one side that has more square showing than the other side. I can see on your passengers side that almost the entire row of squares is showing. Is the drivers side the same way, or does only a smaller portion of that row show ?

 

Smaller portion. Was this a worse install job than what I was thinking originally? I was just down there thinking it wasn't too bad when I pulled it into the garage for the night. Then I noticed the off centerness just slightly....

I thought I'd seen a few other minis with checkered roofs on the forums that had more square on one side than the other......

I'm either going crazy obsessing, or I'm getting more depressed that this was a terrible thing to do to my car. I'm not sure which at this point.

 

 

Oy vey. He's off by about two inches on it being centered correctly.

Damn... that's just poor, I'm sorry.

 

:( :( :(

This was my worst nightmare. It's why I had cold feet this morning.

In my worst fears they would screw this up and it appears that they did.

 

Well... after seeing that last shot, I would definitely go back to him and at least get my money back for the install. He should stand by his job. Do a shitty job, you don't deserve to get paid.

Won't fix your problems, but it will put some money back in your wallet.

 

Thanks for posting the pics. I'm sorry the install didn't turn out as good as you had hoped. I feel your pain when dealing with perfectionism. I suffer from this affliction too. Have been struggling with accepting a less than perfect clear bra install... had it redone twice. This time its much smoother but there a few rather large dust particles. Sigh. Perfectionism is a pita. lol

Hope that the installer can smooth things out for you. For what its worth I think it looks very cool! Am sure most folks will think so too and won't even notice those slight imperfections like us minifectionists do.

 

I missed that shot.

 

I'm booked solid tomorrow, but my wife is going to go down there with my mini so that it's fresh in their minds. She's going to tell them that they need to make this right. Either order and install a new one, or refund us the money for the vinyl and installation.

 

Hope they do the right thing by you. Please keep us posted. Fingers crossed.

CROC 411

 

I second that ^.

Sounds like a good plan. Good luck.

 

From the looks of it, the person who did the installation started on the side and not in the center. I installed a graphic on my rear window this last weekend, and the first thing I did was to make sure I had it centered before I even thought about sticking it on. You definitely deserve your money back.

 

What sucks is that I'm unlikely to get total resolution. Likely either I'll get insall fees back but be stuck with a bad roof and out the $260 for the vinyl, or I'll get nothing back from the installer and be out a total of $350 plus be stuck with the bad roof.

This is a nightmare all the way around.

Remember I bought from Cooper Flags, so there's no way to get the largest chunk of money back.

And on top of all this -- I WANT a checkerboard roof. So now I'm faced with not having the money to get it redone on my own, and having one on there that looks terrible. Even if he agrees to remove it, I'm still stuck with the $260 + potentially $150 install fees.... PLUS I'd have to rebuy the vinyl and pay someone else to install it.

What a unbelievable nightmare in what should be a happy time for me and this car.

 

Well if you can't get any money back, I wouldn't worry about it for now. Sure you know that the install is messed up, but I guarantee 99% of the people who see your car that AREN'T Mini enthusiasts wouldn't notice a thing. It looked fine to me before you pointed out the imperfections.

What I would do is chalk it up as a learning experience (you learned not to go to that installer ever again), save up some cash and get it done properly when you can. And the next time spell it out beforehand that you want nothing less than a perfect install or you won't be paying.

 

Question: How hard is it to remove these Cooper Flag graphics in the future when I want to get it redone?

And you are right theJokell -- most people probably won't notice. My wife just said basically the same thing -- leave it on for 6 months to a year and save pennies and then get it redone later. Meantime enjoy the look even if I know it's imperfect.

 

Yeah I mean you got compliments from your first picture - even people here didn't notice.

 

Well it was a distance shot from the side. Had I posted a shot from the front you would have immediately noticed.

 

One thing that makes me feel better: i noticed the factory checkered mirrors are not uniform on both sides either. So apparently my roof being off center a little wouldn't offset the uniformity of the checkers since the factory caps aren't that way in the first place.