I have read a number of threads relating to these programs. Many of you have been kind enough to even provide links, and pdf files making it possible to read the plans. Some of you have even outlined expected costs associated with maintainig MINI's, so we can determined if it makes sense to purchase them. Thanks for your input. I'm mechanically challenged, and don't know of anyone who could help me maintain my MINI, so for me they make sense. It now comes down to cost. Some have posted that some dealers are selling the extended maintenance policy for as low $650. I couldn't find any dealer that's selling it for less than $1395. I'm hoping you can post, or PM me, with the names of the dealers that are selling these plans at the lowest prices.

Thanks,
Mechanically challenged & frugal Steve.

 

EM extends the 3/36 mtce plans all MINIs come with. If U put on a lot of miles and are mech challenged, plus live in an area of the US were there are zero to few choices for shops beyond the dealer, this might make sense. I put on less than 8K year, and have a truck to drive, so I would not do this.

EW extends the 4/50 oem warranty for a couple extra years and some mileage from the date the car was placed into service. Dont know the specifics. And there are restrictions unlike the oem 4/50, mostly wear items and glass. Again, if U dont motor much what's the sense beyond piece of mind.

I beleive U can purchase both while the car is still under the oem warranties; no use doing up front at the sale. General rule: always get the plans the dealers offer, then U know they will be honored. some of the tv ads for US Fidelis (being sued by BMW) and others are either brokers or blatant ripoffs.

Im sure the experts will chime in here a-plenty. good luck.

 

Thanks for the input

 

I just purchased an '06 MCS from a firend who had extended the warranty to 4yr/50k. After about a week i noticed the AC wasn't working. I brought it in and no problems. I inquired about the extended warranty for my car (currently at 25k) and it came out to $1195 for another two years.

Usually i do my own mechanical work, but on my last car the AC quit ( I think I'm cursed) and after several days of trouble shooting it turned out to be the compressor which cost about 1/3 of what the vehicle is worth. I'm looking forward to almost 3 years of having the brakes replaced for me, oil changed, and grapes fed to me by scantily clad .....oh wait I think i dozed off there for a minute.

Good luck!

 

I have several customers that have extended warranties. I can tell you we've had good luck with Mercury and Easycare. Good thing with them is you don't have to go to the dealer, I do ext. warranty repairs all the time. But be cautious and read ALL the fine print. They have lots of stipulations like deductables, items covered, or not covered. Specific maint intervals they want you to follow, and alot of time NO trailer hitches.
Also if you know your going to make a claim, alot of times you can't make a claim in the first 30-90 days after buying it.

And check with Credit unions, they alot of times have great pricing on warranties.

 

So the $1295.00 deal my dealership is advertising is pretty good, eh? I'm still not sure about spending all that money on "insurance".

 

Hey Way, is that Mercury extended warranty the same as the Mercury Insurance? That is my car insurance company.
Mercury Insurance Group

 

Many car insurance companies also offer extended warranties IF you have insurance through them, keep the insurance through them, buy the insurance within the first year of ownership of the NEW car, and pay a deductible of usually around $250 or so. Geico for example offers this for only about $2 a month on top of insurance premiums. Of course, this doesn't work for everyone BUT it is a MUCH cheaper (up front) option you won't be upset if you never use at 2-3 bucks a month. Check with your insurance company.

 

Geico for example offers this for only about $2 a month on top of insurance premiums. Of course, this doesn't work for everyone BUT it is a MUCH cheaper (up front) option you won't be upset if you never use at 2-3 bucks a month.

Thanks for the advice. I insure my home, cars, and liability policies with GEICO, I never thought to ask them about an extended warranty policy. I'll call them and them and post my findings.

 

Thanks I will ask them, good time to shop around too.

 

Just got off the phone with GEICO. They ONLY offer extended warranty plans to the original owner of the cars "at this time". I was told they are looking into expanding this to pre owned cars. I guess I'll just keep looking around. I'm coverered by MINI for another +/- 35,000 miles, or April 2011. We don't put alot miles on the MINI, and so far the plans that I've looked into don't make financial sense to me.

 

friend of mine went with Geico for her 2005 S and I dont know the specifics but it turned out to be a huge PITA, "never again," she said. Avoid.

 

If you don't know the "specifics" and it was "your friend" who "said" then.....

I have had nothing but good experiences with Geico. YMMV. After all, they are a car insurance company. But then again, we are discussing extended warranties, lol, so this is already a doomed discussion.

 

Yep, that's what I said. "...IF you have insurance through them, keep the insurance through them, buy the insurance within the first year of ownership of the NEW car..." It isn't a new car if you aren't the original owner.

Keep hunting and good luck. Hey, you might not even own the car when the warranty expires. You never know. Keep in mind that you can always buy that MINI extended warranty just before the original one expires. Probably better to wait just in case.

 

I never meant to imply that's not what you said, I was just hoping they offered a plan for pre owned vehicles. I hope to buy the new MINI Rolls Royce edition before my warranty exspires.

 

I understand. I didn't mean to sound so snippy. Sorry.

 

OK, so are we talking "warranties" or "Maintenance"? Unfortunately even the search function of these forums seems to confuse the two.

I'm trying to find out if the MAINTENANCE extension is transferrable and don't see any info through searching the forum.

 

In answer to your question below, the dealer faxed me the fine print on the extended *maintenance*, and it's transferable for free, the new owner just has to send something in.

I did a bit of research, and finally I asked my mechanic in Los Angeles (San Fernando Valley), George, of BimmersClinicInc.com about these things.
Everyone seemed to agree that getting a MINI without extended *warranty* is chancy. However, George thought the BMW extended *maintenance* was VERY unlikely to be worth the $1400 they ask. I guess it depends on whether the brakes go. I went without it. $500 dealer profit on average sounds like an unlikely win. $650 sounds like a myth.

George said dealing with Mercury's extended *warranty* is great, but only get the Platinum to make sure all the parts are covered. They quoted me $1640 for a new MCS (6yr/100Kmls platinum) with $0 deductible, $1460/$50, $1360/$100. I picked $50 deductible. Honestly, after doing this research, I question whether I would get a BMW extended warranty, even if one were available for MINI, I forgot to ask him how those are to deal with.

Note that I do NOT insure with Mercury, that's unrelated. And it's transferable with no fee, just paperwork (just like the BMW extended *maintenance* mentioned above).

The dealer (South Bay - Torrance, CA) tried to sell me the extended warranty from Fidelity for about $2400. An insider tells me that $500 dealer profit is built in to all the dealer add-ons like this, so you pretty much can't win buying it from them. Also, I read some scary things about Fidelity, but would be surprised if a BMW dealer got away with selling an outright scam. One of the complaints went into detail to explain that their "due to wear after 50,000 miles" exclusion could theoretically exclude just about anything at that point, and people claim it sometimes does. I confirmed it DOES say this in the fine print. Also, the fine print said I had to bring it back to the selling dealer "if possible". What?

I did buy the BMW road hazard insurance for $1150 after they explained that BMW introduced it when people realized that the $500 run-flats can't be repaired, even for a nail. And nails love low-profile tires in my experience. This also covers rims. Not sure if it was worth it or not, but peace of mind about nails for 5 years seems reasonable.

We bought the GAP insurance for $500...they asked for $900 even though the salesman said he checked and it was $500 before I bought the car. It didn't come to blows since finance guy was willing to do $500 if we bought something else, and we bought road hazard. Though I'm sure he would have done $500 if I'd made a stink and hunted down the sales guy.

They also tried to sell ding repair insurance for around $900 (heard the exclusions make it worthless), coatings for the exterior, carpet, and leather (an insider said all salesman get this, but I'm suspicious and wouldn't BMW do something like this if it was worth it?), Lojack (why buy from dealer?), some kind of DOTS parts tracking, and possibly even something I'm forgetting. (The dealer took the sheet back when I wasn't looking, be sure to grab and keep info sheets where he writes prices down.) We turned down all of them except for those mentioned above (GAP and road hazard) and my research seems to confirm it was the right thing to do...if you need it, the dealer is probably not the cheapest place to get it. Except for official BMW programs, which I assume have to be purchased from a dealer. As I mentioned, I got BMW road hazard and GAP, but not extended maintenance, and the extended warranty is always third party for MINI, so I'm going with Mercury. Heck, now that I think about it, maybe I could have got third party GAP, but I assumed it had to be the financing bank (in this case, BMW).

I assume that BMW does not offer an official extended warranty for MINIs as a silent testimony to their unreliability.

FWIW, I was pretty happy to order the car for $700 over invoice, so I give South Bay props there. 1.9% from BMW (February deal) is why I used them for financing.

 

Sounds like you did a good job of picking and choosing.

FWIW - Run flats can be repaired just like a regular tire. BMW/MINI won't repair them, but other places will.

 

Check out the thread in the gen 2 sectioned I posted te details of the maint plan.

FYI I had my run flats repaired last year at the dealer for free wheni had some nails in 3 of my tires. 2 were replaced and one was repaired.

 

Minionaire, can you tell me where you get your Mercury quote?

After a month of research, I've decided to go for Mercury extended warranty, having a friend who is not mech-challenged like i am reading the entire contract this weekend. But the quote I got for my MCS with very low mileage is $2225 for 5 additional yrs/100k total miles. It seems the quotes you got is lower. And I am having a hard time locating insurance agents that actually carries this type of extended warranty coverage. every website i go to, they are trying to give me a quote on Car Insurance, but not extended warranty.

after my month of research on various forums, calling my "future mechanic" The M Shop in Atwater Village (Los Angeles), I have decided to forget the extended maintenance, but go for the Extended Warranty instead.

In the interest of sharing research, I did extend my maintenace for 1 more yr when i bought the vehicle. at this point, the best offer I got was from Universal Mini, selling me 2 additional year of extended maintenance for $1000...

let me know about your quote, thank you very much for your help

 

My insurance company does not have repair options. I have purchased a 5/60K extended warranty plan. It starts today. The plan has a $100 deductible. Cost was $4,080. You can read my full writeup here: http://www.hrmini.com/component/opti.../topic,3704.0/.

 

I just bought a JCW from Mini of San Antonio on Tuesday. When it came time to go to financing I dealt with the BMW finance director. It was already past 7PM (closing time) by the time I was escorted to his office, and he was ready to make a deal and get home to his family. After some back and forth I opted for the Fidelity "Value" package.

7 yr / 70k Platinum ($100 ded) $1733
6 yr / 100k mini maint. $1395
5 yr. Tire and wheel $999
Window etching $150

 

I would never buy one from a dealer. From my experience from motorcycles, they use cheesy companies that have a lot of rules. Like you can't take it to an independent shop and you have to take it to a dealer. I hate dealers, they are rip off artists. I am dealing with that problem right now. A dealer that doesn't want to have anything to do with a California and Federal emissions warranty issue and is going to let my car sit because they can make more money on non warranty work. Ok sorry for the rant.

If I were going to buy an extended warranty, I think it's a good idea for a MINI, I would buy it from Mercury. They are a very reputible company. You can take it to any independent shop. My Gf had a warranty from them for her Nissan Maxima. The front end had a noise. They tore the front end of that car down to the engine and replaced everything, with no questions asked to find the noise. All the suspension, hubs, brakes, steering assembly, half shafts and other parts I can't remember. They gave her a rental car. It took awhile but it was fixed and it only cost her the original premium.

If you have an independent shop that you like, talk with them and make sure they can work with the company you want to go with.

 

$4,277 on top of your car.
That seems like a lot to me.
The only extended anything I have ever gotten on a car is was 100k/6yr on our Honda Ody, which only cost $735. This was in 02 when Honda dealers were selling the Honda Care over the net for as little as $25 over their cost.