Hmmmm when I bought my 2006 MCS this summer CR rated it excellent in terms of reliability. Now, they've downgraded its reliability ranking significantly with "Minor Engine Problems" and "Engine Cooling" being in the much worse than average categories.

What did I miss? What are the engine cooling problems being reported? In other words, what are the engine/cooling problems I need to be paying attention for?

 

^ are those downgraded reports about the '06, or are they about the 2d gen MINI?

 

One of the cooling problems could be the thermostat housing warping and/or coolant reservoir leaking due to a design flaw. I had both of those issues on mine.

If I had to go by my own ownership experience (an 05 and 07), I would say the 1st gen models had more issues than the 2nd gen ones. Although, that's not to say the 2nd gen models don't have issues... the 07 came with a defective tranny right out of ther factory, and has had the dreaded cat converter light go on twice. Third time they promise they will replace the converter, so that could be an issue as well.

Tbh, of all the cars I've owned, new and used, the MINI's we own fall in the bottom third as far as reliability. It's been a bittersweet experience so far.

 

CR changes their minds often like the weather.

 

The latest CR downgraded the 2006 Used Car status from "Much Better Than Average" to "Much Worse than Average" based I assume on the Minor Engine Problems & Cooling rankings...

 

MINI probably didn't send in their money to CR in time. CR is NOT unbiased.

 

It could be nothing more than the MCS issues regarding heat generated by the turbo. I know of no other issues related to cooling.

 

Remember people, CR are the same individuals that forced a Samurai to flip (caught on tape), just to down grade it. I trust CR like I trust my supervisor at work.......I DON'T !!!!!!

 

Don't forget about the Corolla/Geo Prism fiasco a few years back.

 

Actually, based on most reports the '05 and '06 MINIs have the least reliability problems of all BMW MINIs. The occasional coolant reservoir seam failure still seems to be there but not any more persistent than all of the previous years, and I can think of a few major items (e.g., the Midlands, PS fan design and electrical harness, etc.) that were rectified. Okay, the motor mount failures are a PITA, but tolerable.

This is always a great resource when reviewing the 1st Gen MINIs:

http://www.motoringfile.com/2007/10/...-buyers-guide/

And I think the jury is still out on 2nd Gen. Only time will tell if the cold start chatter issue represents a flaw that is prematurely eating engines from the inside out. I guess most of the other litany of 2nd Gen complaints are more associated with build quality as opposed to reliability.

 

CR is great for recommending toothbrushes, but not when it comes to autos.

 

I was at my dealer the other day having a thermostat replaced (R56). The SA told me that the R56s are coming back much more frequently than the previous generation for warranty repairs. He also said it took longer to scan CEL codes.

As far as CR goes, I think it's rubbish though.

 

Sounds good, I was just wondering if there actually was a sudden rash of engine cooling problems on the 2006's that I needed to be paying attention to. My sole gripe about my mine in the 3 months I've owned it (bought with 8500 miles & now at 11500) is the ridiculus price of a little bottle of hyper blue touch up paint ($35)! Thanks for the inputs everyone...

 

I wonder what changes/fixes were made for the 2008 convertibles...

 

I don't really trust CR either..

they have been ranking the honda s2000 as very reliable for years
but my buddy's 03 s2k, flawlessly maintained, kept breaking and making weird noises.. not to mention their dreaded convertible top ripping...

 

CR reminds me of a line from "Dances With Wolves," when Timmons was answering Lt. Dunbar's question about the buffalo: "Buffalo!? ***damn buffalo. You can't never tell with buffalo. One day they be thick as fleas, the next you can't find'em."

 

WOW, straight to the point !!!!

 

Consumer Reports is absolute garbage.

Their rating methods are flawed on a very basic level. It seems they have a very weak grasp of quantitative vs. qualitative analysis, and further fail to put things in broader perspective of market quality.

Example: Say Mini got "downgraded" from, on an indexed basis, a 85 to an 80. Less than a 6% change total, but in their minds, worthy of a downgrade to "Much Worse Than Average." How do those qualitative statements rank on a quantitative basis is what they fail to address. To me it seems a minor change, but their words make it appear a much bigger deal.

Unless I totally missed something.

- Matt

 

While CR isn't the final word, you guys bashing them as biased or getting paid off are being silly. They are the ONLY publication that actually goes out and buys the cars they test rather than receiving specially prepped press fleet cars given out by the mfg. And their reliabilty data is based on nothing more than questionaires mailed out to owners, tabulated and statistically processed. There is very little intrerpretation or judgment in the reliabilty data - it's just what the owner's of the cars reported. Now like any statistical survey, there are sampling errors but that doesn't mean it is biased. It's the only reliabiilty data for autos that I know of that has a decent sample size and it scientifically collected and processed.

And their data, for the most part, jives with the personal experiences of most of us who have owned a lot of different cars - the Japanese cars are more reliable. I wouldn't put too fine a point on whether an 04 Mini is better than an 05, but in general, the data shows what most of us know - Mini's are great cars, but if reliability is your #1 priority, get a Toyota or Honda.

- Mark

 

There is no magic here. For a given model year/age of car, they compute an average number of problems, both in specific areas and overall. They also compute a standard deviation using a standard statistical distribution that best fits the data. Then if a car has a statistically signficant number of problems that is more or less than the average, then say it is "less than average" or "more than average". If the deviation is really large (defined as some multiiple of the standard deviation) then they say it is "much less than average" or "much more than average".

They're just reporting data folks. This isn't rocket science and people collect and report data like this all the time. Overall, they do a pretty good job. They accept no advertising and have no axe to grind, other than they are very pro consumer safety and pro regulation. But this has NOTHING to do with their auto reliabilty rankings.

- Mark

 

I have mixed feelings when it comes to CR. I like reading their reviews to see what "real world" problems may have cropped up during their test period. ("Our sample arrived with overinflated tires", etc.) - comments you don't see in the car magazines as well as their reliability statistics which I think are worth reading. I became annoyed with them years ago when my Dad bought a '95 Roadmaster with the Corvette sourced LT1 engine (260 HP) and CR claimed the vehicles only had 180 HP. I emailed them reminding them that the '92-'93 models had 180 HP but that the (then current ones) had now been upgraded for two years with the more powerful LT1 engine. CR never acknowledged their error and it was then I lost faith in their accuracy.

 

I don't think the MINI is ever going to be able to sustain above average reliability statistics. I wonder how CR gathers it's data from owners? For every survey they send to a MINI owner do they send a survey to 50 Toyota owners and a survey to 30 Honda owners? 40,000 MINIs were sold in the US last year, 2 million Toyotas and 1.2 million Hondas.

The stats are very much swayed if they are sending the same amount of surveys to each auto owner. This is why you consistently see the largest auto companies getting the best reliability ratings.

 

That's part of the problem, imo.

 

I think you may be confusing Consumer Reports with "60 Minutes".

Consumer Reports didn't rig the test to force the Samurai to flip, and Suzuki never claimed that they did. The only thing Suzuki was complaining about (and sued CU for) was the phrase in the CR review, "easily rolls over in turns". The phrase made it sound like the Samurai could roll over at any time, when in fact the reviewer was talking specifically about the "short course avoidance maneuver", and not routine driving.


The TV "news" programs are a different story, though.

In a "60 Minutes" segment, the producers showed a Jeep CJ rolling over during an apparently-routine 90-degree right turn. What they didn't tell you was that the steering wheel was being turned by a robotic assembly at a rate of five full turns per second - more than twice as fast as an average human can manage. Plus, they were gunning the accelerator right in the middle of the turn to upset the Jeep. And if that weren't enough, the testers also hung weights high on the corners of the Jeep, inside the body where they wouldn't be visible from outside, but would raise the Jeep's center of gravity.

In the subjective portions of CR product tests, I think they sometimes focus on things that I don't think are important, and vice-versa, but I've never seen any credible claims that they're rigging tests to get the results they want.

 

I stopped reading consumers when they said JIF tasted better than Skippy.

Knuckle heads.