I've just about reached the end of loving my MINI :-(

It's truly a fun to drive car and in concept I still realy realy love it. But the repair bills are costing a fortune. Not to mention the loss of a vehicle while it's being repaired. I think it's time for something more reliable.

It has 117,000 miles on it. I don't do track days and most of the driving is on the freeway. To me a car that costs what these do and built by the BMW company should go a lot more miles without nickle and diming you to death. I've put more $3K in out of warranty work into this car over the past year or two. Thats with doing the majority of the work myself. I can't imagine what the costs would have been having MINI do it all.


Here's the list of things that have needed repair or are in need of repair to date:

Cruise control module (Warranty)
Rear hatch hinges
Rear Hatch gas shocks
Drivers side latch cable
2 windshields
2 right side motor mounts (1 done under warranty)
Rear wiper motor
Right seat passenger weight sensor
PS fan harness fire (which destroyed the battery)PM me about this one!
Another PS fan failure in a year ( yes the one that MINI replaced when the previous fire occured)
Radiator cooling fan assembly failure
DTML pump failure
Intermittent DTML pump wiring circuit
Drivers seat vinyl cracked
Drivers side armrest vinyl cracked
PS oil canister leaks
Noisy belt tensioner
Brake wear indicator circuit won't reset (with new sensors installed)

Not to mention the regular wear and tear
I've probably forgotten a few other tid bits as well.

Thanks for letting me rant :-)

 

so sorry thta u have so many repairs...

 

Are you the original Owner, maybe the car was very hard driven by the previous owner?

 

Welcome to the world of BMW!!

Considering your car is almost 5yrs old and the mileage, it is not tooo terrible of a list. Don't worry, there are things that will go bad that you can add to list in the future. I have an 05 and have replaced the PS pump, seat bottom that cracked, 1 mount and a clutch slave. My major repairs were self induced issues.

While some things on that list I would consider minor or probably not mini specific, it is frustrating to have the constant aggravation. If you are mechnically inclined, I would invest in a shop manual and do some of the work yourself. If not, get a Honda for DD and keep the MINI when you want to have some fun.

 

05 MCS, no major issues until last week.

Why would you have to replace the windshield twice?

 

HOLY F*&^ !!!!! THAT'S A LONG LIST !!! DUMP IT .
i'm considering this too but for a classic .

 

Hi All

Maybe I was a little hasty in my rant yesterday. I have my MINI back and enjoyed the hell out of it driving to work this morning!

But it is getting aggravating to be constantly fixing things. I feel like I'm back in the old MG or Fiat spyders that I've owned. Constant tinkering required. Fun stuff if you don't rely on them for daily drivers.

Jroca, I bought it brand new.

Go_mini_go, I do most of the work myself but can't always mostly because of available time.

Wagnbat, the first windshield was hit by a large stone at 2000 miles, the second one a PPG glass is now badly pitted and has recently been hit with stone. While this isn't unique to MINI's it seems that the front end design or lowness lends the MINI to wearing out windshields. What did your first major issue consist of?

By the way. I just installed the new TSW motor mount and it's awesome. A bit more cabin vibration but the mount makes the engine feel much more "connected" to the car. Highly recommend it.

Rockymt98

(edit)now I see my sig is broken too :-)

 

Ya I'm feeling the hurt too.

I bought my 04 MCS about a year ago with 65k miles on it and it has 83k miles now.

Mushroomed Strut Towers - They were mushroomed when I bought it. I didn't know to look out for this common issue on MINIs.

Rear Brake Calipers - In the shop now with possibly two bad rear brake calipers that can't be rebuilt but need to be replaced with $495 oem parts.

Rattle - which I think is the belt tensioner but hope to god isn't the supercharger.

Oil Leak - There is an oil leak but the tech said he can't tell where it comes from. Either the oil pan or the seam where the two peices of the block are bolted together. Either one is a hefty bill to fix.

Driver Side Window - Doesn't roll down, needs new motor and/or actuator.

Cracked Brake Fluid Reservoir

Paint peeling off driver side inside door panel

 

mine w 96k just overheated yesterday. I'm going to change the tstat and the housing and cross my fingers.

i think the cat is bad also.

 

i have a 06s and will be going to the dealer for the 3rd time in 9 months..had a nice list last visit..now its just the motor mount..i have been working on cars sins i was 18..know 35 and i think alot of things in life come with luck or no luck..but i realy think this car is very fun to drive but its realy not reliable..i am scared to keep this car after the warrantee is over..that i dont think i will be..i also think the dealers and manufacturer of this vehicle dont care about you or me..had a war d with them and they did not care about me..good luck..

 

Car sat outside through a storm and now it won't respond the the Gas pedal. Other minor issues include bypass valve sticking and some clown in a valet parking garage snapping my short shifter in half.

Don't know what to say about the windshield though. I put 20k miles on my car the first year, 10k the next... Drove from DC to the Dragon (Tennessee) twice. I've got some pits on the front of the hood, but only 1 on the windshield.

Though when I was in DC, people used to complain about the windshields back then too... *shrug* Primary factor is probably the angle of the windshield... What other car has a windshield that sticks up like ours?

 

If you were 5 yrs old and lugged 3000lbs around for 117K miles you would have some cracks in your skin and other issues too.

All those problems with exception of the fire stuff (glass ?) is basic normal wear and tear. Even for some other imports as well.

Car owners tend to fall into two basic catagories. Fix it when it break people and those who invest in the proper maintenance of their cars. Fixing stuff only when it breaks causes a cascade effect of other part failures due to the stress put upon other wearable parts before it fianally goes....

IMO, know what parts get worn and how long they last. Replace them when their average life expectency is reached and you will save yourself money, time and headaches later on....

IMO, If you owned a VW, your list would be twice as long.

 

I'm on my third windshield. Got the touch-up paint kit for the bumper/hood -- that'll be a full afternoon there are so many spots.

Overall, I think my username sums up my thoughts. It's a fun car to drive, and I don't want to have to get rid of it. I'm currently stuck between committing to paying/tinkering forever for a car whose list of past problems (mostly covered by warranty) is not short, or giving up. The really big question mark for me is the CVT tranny -- I'm already on my second, which drives just like the 1st did when the 1st was running fine. Does that mean it's destined to fail too? I certainly wouldn't mind trading up for a 2nd gen at this point, but convincing the wife would be a major undertaking...

 

I accept I need to sell my car the second the warranty expires. I am afraid your experience, while tolerable to many, isn't all that rare. As the past owner of two Audi's I am very familiar with the outrageous cost of anything German after the warranty ends. I still remember the day the dealer told me my 5 year old 70,000 mile A6 2.7T was "totaled" as a turbo replacement (mistakenly diagnosed, thank God) cost more than the blue book value of the car. Germans design great cars but the combination of ridiculous service costs, and over-complicated design (you need a computer program change to get rear fog lights to work!) is a killer if it is coming out of your pocket.

The minute the free loner goes away I will sell/trade in (probably buy an other Mini). Been "test driving" a nice new MCS over a week now.

 

While my S was in the local BMW specialists shop for the emissions and cooling fan fixes, the shop owner started talking to me about having fixed more than few CVT's recently that apparently just needed to be reprogrammed. He also mentioned that a couple of the cars had come to him after the owners had been told they needed a new transmission.

Not saying thats the fix for all the CVT problems....

 

Of course "totalled" relative to Blue Book value is a bit misleading. The calculation really should be the break-even point between the cost of maintaining your current vehicle versus the cost of purchasing and maintaining a new one.

And what is it with Audi dealers? I got so frustrated with the Audi of Nashua folks telling me -- repeatedly -- that my '96 A4 was on the brink of death (implication being that I should buy or lease a new one from them, of course) that I stopped going to them altogether and fortunately found a local, reasonably priced independent shop to do the work on the car. I loved my A4 -- and my 4000 before that -- but that dealership really put me off of thinking about owning another Audi.

The funny thing is I kept the A4 going for another 5 years or so (?) before it finally did get to be too expensive. I probably put in more money than the car was technically worth, but it was still cheaper than car payments. (It's now off to a new owner who has been able to put in the $$$ to keep it going.)

I'm now a 3-month owner of an '05 MCS with ~51000 miles on it. I anticipate that at some point -- hopefully later rather than sooner -- I will have to invest some money into keeping it running optimally; that just comes with car ownership -- sort of like maintaining a home. (I'll restrain myself from going off on a rant about our "throw-away" society....)

That said, I did purchase an aftermarket warranty/insurance policy that should cover pretty much anything that self-destructs on me over the next couple of years. It may be overkill and hopefully it won't be necessary, but it does provide some peace of mind. (Fingers crossed....)

 

I'lll admit that in the past I've fallen into the former category of car owner; now that I am a proud MINI owner, I hope to be more proactive about proper maintenance.

Of course it doesn't help that I'm the 3rd owner of my car and don't have a record of what may or may not have been done thus far (@ ~51k)....

That said, I've been mostly clueless about maintenance aside from checking tire tread, and making sure I have enough washer fluid and that the oil is changed reasonably promptly -- that's what my mechanic is for, right? I would benefit tremendously from a checklist of what parts get worn and what their average life expectancy is.

The MINI service guide is marginally helpful in this regard, but if a checklist of this sort exists somewhere, I'd be tremendously grateful if someone would point me in the right direction. And if it doesn't exist, this seems like an excellent resource to compile and post on NAM.