I have a 2015 JCW 2 door. Last year before I bought it it was taken to A MINI dealer for front and back brakes. Today I took it in for an oil change, at a different dealer closer to my house ( I’ve only driven 5000 miles in 1 year for a total of 25,000 miles) and he read my key and said it needs the brake fluid changed and flushed. Around $250. I told them ok but not sure if that would have been done a year ago when they did the brakes at a different dealer. Did they rip me off? I tried to google it but can’t find specifics.
Now to add insult to injury when I picked up the car I headed out the dealer driveway and the pedal went all the way to the floor. Took it back and they said there were only a couple of cars were they have seen this. They blamed in on a computerization of pumping the brake fluid in, and a Mini rep would be contacted Monday. Meanwhile they gave me a loaner
For oil change and brake fluid flush I paid $359. Any thoughts on if I even needed this expensive service?

 

If you did the brake flush yourself, it would have been about $10. However, if you don't enjoy working on cars it would not be fun.

Yes it is a worthy thing to do & will allow your brake components to live a long life (& maybe save yours someday). So you got some value out of the money spent.

The tech screwed up let the resv get empty & got air in the lines, not a computer glitch jmo. Enjoy the loaner.

 

Made me look. I went back thru my service records for cost of brake fluid flush and bleed system. The hourly rate was $85.00 for 7/10 of an hour and the fluid $9.96. Total charge $68.75 and I didn't have to take some loaner home. Go find a reliable BMW/MINI INDEPENDENT service shop and never darken the door of those company thieves again.
PS: My brakes worked just fine as I drove back in to traffic. If my shop guy tells me the sky turned purple, I don't have to go look.

 

I went to do this myself today.. and my pressure bleeder sprang a leak :( I had to run out to Home Depot to pickup some tubing and clamps to replace the existing ones.

It is actually pretty easy, and you can do it without removing the wheels if you are nimble and put the car on jack stands.
Personally, I think what you paid was a ripoff.

Cost for me to do the work was an hour for the oil change, and most of that was me removing all 4 tires (I have the 5000 pound quickjack) in prep for cleaning the calipers and inside of the wheels of brake dust. $20 for the filter kit from the dealer, and $40 for the full synthetic oil.

Brake fluid, depending on where you get it, ranges from $10 to $20 per liter. You only need 1 generally, but never hurts to have an extra (in case the bleeder line breaks and sprays fluid everywhere.. and then you spend the next hour cleaning it up off the floor (fortunately it did not hit the car).

 

That is double the price that they should charge. Rip-off, complain!

Changing brake pads & rotors doesn't mean that they do a flush, although it is an obvious time to get it done.

Yes find a new shop.

 

Contrarian view here. While my car is still in warranty but no longer in free maintenance – which is just a 1-year window – I’ll pay the dealer their high price on oil/coolant/brake fluids. Why? Insurance. If I have a warranty problem in that last year, I won’t have to argue about who did the work and was it done right. It’s 100% on them.

That said … here is my service receipt for brake fluid flush in 2012:

 

I just had mine done yesterday. My 2016 JCW is about to go out of warranty after 4 years. I have 8500 miles on it. I paid the dealer $130 to do it. They did the oil change for $50, and went through the car to see if there is anything they can do under warranty before it's up in August. I'm having the outside mirror motors replaced on Tuesday. I really didn't want to mess with the brake fluid flush myself, and figured I wanted them to inspect the old oil before the car goes out of warranty, so I went ahead with the service. I'm going to do the air filter and cabin filters myself.

 

Apple and oranges. OP's work was out of warranty as was mine. Op's work was done in a dealership, mine by an indie.

 

Not sure how it was apples and oranges - the original poster had his brake flush done at the dealer - and, I merely said I also had mine done at the dealer. Both of our cars were out of the original free maintenance period, so we both had to pay. I paid $130 for the flush and another $50 for the oil change.

 

It's irrelevant. Magnuson–Moss Warranty Act. It is on the onus of the dealer to prove that any work done was the fault. Keep good records, and you will be fine. This is not rocket science, and it is not like you are playing with the codes (that would void your warranty outright). Additionally, they cannot void the warranty if the problem was the transmission and you worked on the brakes, and vice versa. People like myself have been doing our own work for ages and never had a warranty problem. I do currently have an issue with Mini corp refusing to fix my wifes brakes due to the inner front passenger pad wearing out completely, many thousands of miles before all the other front pads, the same issue I have with my 17 Clubman (hers is a 18 Countryman). See my brake thread if you want more details on that.

 

Wackit-- why not name the dealer that did the work? Let's not give any of these "heavy charging" dealers any of our business.
Bratling posted his dealer, which happens to be where I purchased my Mini.

 

You’re technically correct (the best kind). But this is a case where I don’t want to be legally correct but argue endlessly and end up taking someone to small claims court. The $50 extra it costs vs an independent shop or the $100 extra over doing it myself is the insurance.

It’s basically risk management. Risk of something happening? Low. Chance that dealer will try to make it my fault so they can charge me full book rate instead of getting reimbursed at BMW’s lower rate? Very, very, very high.

And while that’s exactly the kind of crap the MMW Act was meant to prevent, I just don’t want to deal with it at all. To me, it’s worth the $50-100. It’s a bet I hope I never have to collect.

Great illustration of the risk I’m mitigating … chance of them trying to make it our fault is very very high. :-)

 

Is this Number 1.0 Bureaucrat talking to Hermes?

 

About rip offs ???????............. It seems I live very far from civilization here in WA..... local independent shops are not even better. Last spring, I received quotes from 2 local shops specialized in European cars. None was under $225. One told me they could not book the job for a month being too busy in a community of 20,000 LOL.... and they are always closed Fridays.


I ended up at a Midas shop ( in civilization LOL) and the job was done for $95. This is the same pattern from independent shops for oil changes at least around here. They charge around $80 with no credit if you have your own OEM filter.

So, I go to Walmart with my OEM filter and the job is done for $42 with Castrol Full Synthetic 10W30 as recommended by Mini.

What about a brake job just to replace rotors and pads? One shop quoted $700 for labor excluding parts. I had the job done by my neighbor who works on his rat rod every weekend for $100 for less than 1.5 hr.

Bottom line, why shops are overcharging when a Mini comes to their door? The bad reputation of unreliable cars still sticks to the brand and they know they have to dismantle the entire front end for most basic repairs.

 

I agree about shops not wanting to work on MINIs! My Indy BMW mechanic who has been working on my Bimmers for decades, yes decades, will not service a MINI for that very reason. He did service then for awhile but stopped. He services mine because he’s a friend, but they are not easy cars to work on. Heck, I have a 2 post automotive lift and my JCW is the only vehicle I’ve ever had a problem fitting on the lift! MINIs are so wide the lift arms are too long to lift it proper!

 

I never experienced the lifting as a problem. Independent shops expect Mini owners to have deep pockets and furthermore when they see JCW scripts, they believe we are just coming out of a racetrack as our rides are weird and strange beasts to most of them.

Just to have an oil change done, you have to explain on site how to have access to the oil filter because when the hood is open, they are completely lost. Not to mention they are very afraid to remove the 10mm bolt moving away the coolant tank to access the oil filter. I always provide my own socket so they don't mess up.

 

They're afraid if they use their 10mm socket it will fall deep into the engine bay and become unretrievable. You can always tell an experienced mechanic because they have no 10mm sockets anywhere. They’re all in customer cars.

If if you didn’t bring your own 10mm they’d be completely stuck.

10mm sockets, man. I once even lost one inside a freaking motorcycle fairing during a track day. It fell out on my driveway months later.

Those little buggers are the devil.

 

I requested that my new dealership, Mini of Cincinnati, do a brake fluid flush along with some other services on our F56JX with 50,000 miles on it. The total cost for the flush was $138 which I thought was fair enough. I also had several other services performed and I thought all of those were reasonable as well. I wanted to get to know them as my dealership folded earlier this year and I was #1 on their GP list. Cincinnati Mini put me #2 on their list when I requested it and I appreciate that as well. I wanted to get to know them and I was very happy with their staff, the facility, and the overall dealership. It is owned by the BMW dealership adjacent to them although they are physically and contractually separate dealerships. They provided a loaner vehicle, a new F56S, for us while our mini was being serviced and we drove to lunch and returned. We walked over to the BMW dealership about 300' or so away and checked out the new BMWs and they had a terrific stock on hand! I will check them out when we decide to sell the corvette.