Hey Folks,
I just bought my First Mini Cooper S (horizon blue, black top) on March 26th, and I love the car. Unfortunately I am already having some problems. This is my first post so please forgive me if I have it in the incorrect category.

No more than 24 hours after I drove off the lot I hit a pot hole on the 405 here in Los Angeles at 75mph. Noticed within a two days after that I had a slow air leak in the tire that hit the pot hole. I took it into the dealership and once the car was lifted up could clearly see that I banged up the inner rim pretty badly. However it turned out the leak wasn't from the rim area but rather a tiny micro hole in the center of the rim that we weren't able to see until we submerged the tire into water.

So the rim needs to be replaced, managed to talk to the dealership down from $400 to $280 once I showed them on my iPhone I could get the rim for $280 online from another dealership. However they wanted to charge me $400 to install the damn thing and re-allign my wheels. I managed to talk them down to $235 for the installation. The rim is not arriving till later this week, so nothing has been done yet, but I am sorely tempted to take the car to a standard tire shop and have them do it for about $120. The Mini dealership is claiming why they are charging me so much more is for the "special" alignment machine they have that aligns directly to the bolts.

My question for you all is how much better is the Mini/BMW alignment machine? Is it something that I should be paying for, or is it a marketing gimmick to get my to pay more money?

Thanks and I look forward to being part of the community here!

 

Hey Mattcubed,

I can see that we got our cars in same dealership and has simiral issues.
First of all, Nick Alexander is really ripoff. I goy my clubman Nov. last year and had pot hole damaging the rims withing a month. I was getting overcharged by them trying to sell something that were completely fixable and reusable and check this out. I forgot his name but a maxican guy in service didn't say "speacial alingment" but he said mini's alingment can't be done anywhere else and qouet me $320 or 340 I can't remember but definately over $300 for just an alignment. There is thread I posted in this forum and NAMer's saved me from getting tricked.

 

I dont want to slam the dealership just yet. I am giving them a chance to redeme themselves. The bent rim isnt their fault, pot holes happen. And I am pretty sure the rim needs to be replaced. Not only is it substantially bent in two spots, but more importantly there is an actual hole between the inner are outer rim that is causing the air leak. But i am very curios if anyone has any knowledge of their "special" allignment equipment.

 

about Mini and BMW using different equipment than most. Search NAM. But that doesn't mean it's the only way to do it--fundamentally all cars have four wheels and four rims and as long as you can get the equipment accurately attached/calibrated with the wheel axes, that's what matters.

Separately though, have you considered just turning it in to your insurance co. as a comprehensive claim, assuming you have it and the deductible is low. For me on a no fault rock hit, found this was the $100 out of pocket solution that repaired a bunch of annoying damage, and got me out of the repair hassle/oversight biz too. Sounds like for you, it's at least a tire, a wheel and an alignment, all of which adds up $$ wise.

 

If it was my car, I would find a good alignment shop and have them do it. As an alternative, I would consider dumping the run flats as well. I know it will cost more money, but you will be thankful you did. Just buy a wheel tire package from someone like tirerack.com and sell what you have left on nam marketplace. Just a thought.

 

Agree with Slinger........dump the runflats and rims. Pick up a tire/wheel pkg from anyone of the various sites out there. Get the alignment done at a race/speed shop. It might be a little more than Big O type chains but they will get the job done right.

 

Um, I am not dumping the tires or the rims, I am not made of money at the moment. The single rim is only going to cost me $280. I also don't understand what is wrong with the run flats? Perhaps when the tires need replacing I will opt out of them, but they are perfectly good tires. I hit a giant pot hole at nearly 75 mph.... its not surprising that it did damage.

I'd still love to know more what the deal is with the Mini rotation equipment, I am leaning towards what MP1.6T said about getting it done elsewhere. Unfortunately my deductible on my insurance is $1000, so its not going to be of much use to me because at the most right now its only gonna cost about $550. Also I am fairly sure it wouldn't fall under a "comprehensive" claim, pretty sure it would be collision.

 

My dealer charges $200 to align a MINI, I figure that's less than 2 hrs labor at their $125/hr shop rate.

Now the other side of the coin. I bought 4 new tires for my '09 Clubby and had the tire shop (NTB) do an alignment - figuring like most people that it really wasn't that complicated and anyone should be able to do it.

12K later when I rotate my tires front to back - same side - I notice the rears are feathered badly on the inside edges, and when I drive it they're noisey as hell!

I take it back to the NTB shop and they check it and tell me it's fine. Ok, so whay are my tires ruined at only 12K miles? The last set of these exact same tires on this car went 33K!

So I take it to another highly regarded tire shop nearby and they check it and say the rear is way off, and they can't get it into spec with the adjustments available.

A few days later my dealer sends a coupon for an alignment at $99, so I take it there and hopefully they have straightened it out.

Bottom line, if you don't like their price, find another dealer - there are certainly plenty of them to choose from in LA aren't there? - but since you have a brand new car, I'd stay with a MINI dealer.

In my experience the cheapest price is usually not the best deal!

If you have to replace more tires after only 12K miles like I am, did you really save any money going to the inexpensive place?

Something to think about.....

 

Well after some leg work and a little negotiation, the dealer agreed to a much more reasonable price, comparable with the other places I was looking at, so looks like the issue is resolved, for now.

 

how much is good deal???

 

finding a good alignment shop is as hard as finding a good dentist. Altho the equipment is fancy there is a skill level to using it. I have never used a dealer for an alignment in nearly 40 years of car ownership.

Know any one who does amateur racing? Not just auto-cross but real racing with a "set up" car? Ask where they go for suspension work. Or ask some of your Beemer friends as the MINI is very similar to smaller Beemers. Or your MINI club if there is one. They probably know of a small independent that does quality work. It may take some time to find him but once you do hold on to him. Like a dentist you'll find the good ones by referral, not the phone book.

 

One not so commonly known tidbit about MKV and MKVI GTI's is that when you have the car aligned, you have to go into the ECU and reset the "straight ahead" position to whatever it is with the new alignment. The ECU automatically corrects the steering wheel position to account for any slight misalignment.

If you don't do this, you'll never be able to get the steering wheel centered when the car is going straight because of this offset that's built into the ECU.

Not sure if MINI's have the same issue, but those are the types of things that no independent shop is going to know about, much less do for you in their $39.99 alignment.

 

Not to disrespect Slinger's opinion... I got a similar advice when I bought my MINI 2.5 years ago. I didn't have extra money to dump the runflat tires "just because", so I kept them... and oh man, I was so happy MANY times when I had to hurry to some appointment in the morning, and the low tire warning sign is on... With runflats, you still can go (slow) and fix it later. That made the morning so much less stressful. I love my runflats now :-)

 

No issues with differing opinions. I think they made those run flats for exactly people with your needs.

 

My dealer here in New England charged me $100 for the alignment. Just as a comparison point.

 

No disrespect to those feeling that their runflat tires saved them from so much trouble when their low tire pressure lights came on but in my experience, I've had more low tire situations in the 2 years I had runflat tires on my car than in my entire lifetime of driving (35 years) with non-RF tires.

Even after I switched out the runflat tires (4 years now), I have had exactly one(1) flat tire when I drove my car with snowtires on, at the time, through a construction zone and ran over a nail. I carry a plug kit and a compressor. Took 15 minutes to fix.

Incidentally, if you run on your runflat tires with low air, you run a fairly high chance of having to replace your tire. Not just repair it. Once the sidewalls have been compromised, the tire dealer or your MINI dealer (for some reason, I see a conflict of interest here) will insist you buy a new tire.

I believe RF tires are a good idea, but the execution of them is not ready for prime time. They are also too expensive as an insurance policy against the fairly slim chance you will get a flat tire.