I have had prior poor experience with this dealer while owning two BMW's. Now I'm enjoing their service with my Mini. Unfortunatly they are the only game in town for BMW or Mini.

My first visit to the service department as a Mini owner was to order and schedule the install of the JCW engine tuning kit. As I expected they had no idea what I was talking about. After speaking with two or three people we got the order placed, and set up an appointment for installation. I showed up for the appointment and left the car. That afternoon I received a call letting me know the parts hadn't even arrived yet. Picked up the car and scheduled an appointment the next week. Ended up taking a total of 3 trips to get everything installed correctly.

Last week I took my Mini in to have the sunshade that refused to stay closed fixed, an alignment done, repair my inoperative windshield washers, and activate the rear fog lights that I installed. I received the car back at the end of the day with the sunshade fixed, but now there is a terrible wind noise at the sunroof. The steering wheel has gone from being off center to the right to now being off center to the left. They had to order a new windshield washer pump, and they say they are unable to activate the rear fog lights. They claim that none of the Mini's have rear fog lights, because it is a European only option. Apparently they tried to program the car (I'm guessing) because now my Sirius radio and Ipod no longer work. I tried to discuss the rear fog light issue with the service manager but he has no clue about Mini's. According to his card he is the BMW service manager. I guess Tom Bush Mini doesn't warrant their own service manger. Always feels good to pick up a car after service with more issues then when it went in.

It is a good thing that the car is such a blast to drive. Almost makes it worth putting up with the inept dealer.

 

When I had a similar poor service experience, the service manager told me that the Dealer Council (Made up of a group of fat cat MINI dealers) made MINI shorten the amount of training days for technicians, off site. I guess the dealers did not want to pay their techs to learn as much as they could about the R56, so that they can fix them over and over again for the same problems.

 

Wow, sorry to hear about your bad experience. I am in North Florida and was thinking about going to Tom Bush for service and warranty claims. Maybe I will take my car to the Atlanta dealers instead!

 

I have no advice on the Atl dealers, but I certainly wouldn't expect to have problems fixed in one trip to Tom Bush.

 

Sounds pretty Mini typical to me....

 

My experience with other dealers such as Ford and GM are the same. You just have to find a dependable one. Unfortunately we don't have as many choices with our Mini.

 

Just don't go to Global Imports in Atlanta. They have poor service and the dealership is not good to the MINI community. MINI of South Atlanta is the place to go!

 

OK, thanks for the info!

 

Funny you say that since my wife and I were just comparing our recent service visit at our local Chevy dealer (Jerry Hamm Chevrolet). Other than a bit of initial confusion as to who our service writer was the the work performed and customer service was head and shoulders above that received at Tom Bush BMW/Mini.

 

I bought from Tom Bush, but a move to Birmingham led me to have most of my service at Mini of South Atlanta. Satisfied. In fact, I just ordered my new one from them.

 

Sorry to hear about your experience with Tom Bush, sounds like you did not deal with Joe who is the MINI Service advisor. Joe is very familiar with the MINI. I've delt with him since 2005 on my MCS, with no problem at all, Tom Bush and Joe's service has blown away all other dealers and independant repair shop's I've delt with.

I did learn early on in my experience to not deal with the fill in service adviser's when Joe was on vacation, as they where just there to accept your keys and schedule work, they knew nothing about the MINI.

I would reccommend calling and speaking with Joe, and only Joe. Regan the Lead MINI mechanic is very professional, and knowledgable about JCW and other after market parts for the MIN.

 

Ive purchased 2 miniS through Tom Bush and havent had any trouble. the service area is usually busy, and i've had to wait a few minutes, but other than that no complaints. I need to talk with this Regan you speak of .

FWIW: i had my M3 serviced there and the service was outstanding. Talk to Jeremy.