I know this has probably been discussed before, but I'm too stupid to find the info either on the forums or on the Mini USA site. Could someone please tell me or point me in the right direction to find out exactly when a Mini's scheduled maintenance occurs, what is done during the maintenance, and what's the cost? Thanks.

 

New mini's have free scheduled maintenance for 3yr/36k miles. The computer will tell you when its time to take it in, which is probably somewhere between 10K - 20K miles, depending on how hard you drive and external conditions. MINI will do all required routine servicing at that time, but you can get just an oil change at your 1yr point (and that's all they will do).

 

In other words, they don't really have the information documented (at least I've never seen it after almost 3 years on this site and 2+ years of being a MINI owner). I've asked my service department to tell me what they do and when and got a similar answer as above ^. I've gotten to the point that I will call my SA or MA every several months and ask them if I'm due for any service soon in addtion to what the computer is telling me. Good luck. "In MINI We Trust"

 

What bugs me about the computer based maintenance is that the computer apparently can't tell time.

Unless you read the maintenance manual and discover that your oil should be changed at least once per year, the computer will be happy to let you go without an oil change until you hit the mileage-based oil change interval, regardless of how long that takes.

If the MINI manual is telling us to change the oil at least every 12 months, why doesn't the computer tell us the same thing?

My Clubman is nearly 2 years old, at about 17k miles, with lots of low-speed stop-and-go, and short trips in cold weather. Under those conditions I would think the computer would have my MINI on an earlier oil change interval, but it still says I have over 2k to go before my first change.

That's 2 years and 19.5k miles before the computer thinks my oil needs changing! Bad computer! Dumb computer!

I change my oil 2x per year, once for free by the dealer, and in-between on my own. I'd hate to see what the original oil would have looked like after 19.5k and 24 months before the first change!

 

Its the programming that is skewed toward long service. They could have programmed shorter intervals if they wanted.

I just my so called first service today. 19 months, 21.7 K miles. Not sure why the interval was so long given I did 22 track days with the car, with consistently high revs up to the limiter.

 

Wow! I'm pretty sure your original oil must've been pretty dark and gunk. I have exactly 16k and it's been about 9 months since I've bought my MINI. I remember I did my first oil change at around 6k and the oil was pitch black. My computer is also telling me that I have about < three thousand miles left before my 1st check up. That's a bit too long for my OCDness. I'm gonna do an oil change myself this week.