Today, I traveled to Seattle for the second factory maintenance at 18K.

It is a 5 hours road trip to leave the car and come back home. The loaner is a 2016 S HT with 2K. Overall, I have to say that I am not impressed at all. I will have the car for a few days.

As expected, Seattle Mini is a very small dealership with only 2 service advisors. I now understand why they never return phone calls. They have a "very large" waiting room and It is obvious customers are there for a long time. They have about 12 stalls and the parking lot is full of cars waiting for service. there is only one car in the showroom.

As for the driver's seat bolster fading, they may have to replace the entire seat. It seems to be an issue they have from time to time with the sports seat fabric.

 

Richard

Do you have this seat?



Ian

 

Yes. I love them and they are very comfortable.

 

Mini America is very very slow to provide the authorization for the seat cover replacement. The service manager called me a few days ago to know if I was a first Mini owner, if the car was bought new and what is the mileage.

They are very strange questions considering they have the full story of the car since delivered and stating I am the original owner.

My car has been at the dealership for service since a week now. The way it goes, it may take another week or more to have all that matter resolve.

Anybody had issues with Mini and service before?

 

Richard

Its called being cheap and I have seen that with even my Porsche in the past.

Call them and dont tolerate them not stepping up to fix it if its defective.

Ian

 

I finally received a phone call today. Mini authorized the seat replacement. It will take 3 weeks to have the parts because they are coming from Germany.

So, tomorrow will be another 5 hours trip to go to pick up my car in Seattle and come back home.

Furthermore, in more than a week, these guys have not been able to fix the rattles with my very clear explanations from where they are coming from.

I will have to drive with a tech tomorrow to show him where it is coming from and how to fix them. This is ridiculous.

They probably never fixed a Coupe before or even looked at TSBs.

 

After more than a week at the dealer. The rattles are not fixed yet but they found only today where they are coming from.

I will have to go back to Seattle in 3 weeks and leave the car again for a few days because of the seat replacement when the parts will come from Germany. They will fix all the rattles in same time.

I really enjoy having my JCW Coupe back. The loaner was a 2016 HT S but it is not my cup of tea. This was not a bad car. I don't think a JCW would be either my choice because of the handling dynamics of the HT being so far apart from the Coupe.

 

Hopefully they will fix the rattles.

Ian