Well let my horror story begin.......
Picked up my HB MCS about a month ago as many people know from the August build thread. Had an absolute ball driving THE MINI everywhere. Long trips and just random short ones. Went to Lime Rock race day at Lime Rock park with many Miniacs from the NY/NJ area. Well on that day besides driving real fast on the highway and admiring the handling and acceleration of the MCS I realized something else......
THE CAR HAS NO FREAKIN' HEAT, my girlfriend is yelling at me that she is cold and to turn on the heat, I am like listen the damn thing is set to HI and it is blowing out ICE.... NO HEAT
So we get back and I am furious to say the least, schedule an apointment at the dealership, arrange for a rental etc. Get there and the Service advisor says that it should be no big deal, probably a cable slipping or a bad sensor, should be done by early afternoon, I am excited!
Yeah well when 4 o'clock came and went I decided to go see what was up.... ummmm well sir when they built your car in Oxford they well ummm somehow DID NOT INSTALL ANY HEATING COMPONENTS!!! WOW was I floored then the next comment was even better..... we can't fix it right now because the 2004 parts are different from the 2005 parts, they won't fit but we can try to MAKE THEM FIT...... um NO have some parts shipped here from where ever and get it fixed right. So I wait a week for the parts to get here and bring her back in, they have the car for 2 complete days and I go to pick it up and......... Well this is a more involved process than we anticipated and we need some more parts and your car is not ready to be driven so we will need to keep it longer.
That is where I am at now, I am sure the dash has to come completely out and all the ducts, wires, motors and sensors need to be installed. I am not happy at all, how does a car like this pass the factory inspection and actually leave the plant??? that is what I would like to know.
I can not complain about the dealer, they have me driving a Demo BMW X3 which is not a bad little truck. So they are doing there best. I am just real mad at MINI..... I am sure when i get my car back it will be a creaky mess and it will never be the same and that is just a shame.
Well that is all for now, I will keep you all up to date and everyone good luck!

 

My friend that sucks,any car that comes to North America should have heat
My MC has great heat,and with the heated seats,it is great,even at -40

 

No heat??? Did they think this was an southern asia market car??? (snapped this in Thailand)...


They sure have a bad information system at Mini for sequencing cars

 

HB, this is a horrendous situation! Don't let your guard down....insist, as you have been doing, that everything be made right and AS YOU PAID for, dangit! I wonder what day your baby was built? On a Friday party day, perhaps? GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!

Please keep us posted.... :smile:

Clover

 

Oh my! That is a horrendous situation! If I were in your shoes, I would not take the car back until I was satisfied. Also, if the car starts to elicit creaks from the dash area, take it back until it is fixed correctly!

While your dealer's BMW/MINI techs are probably competent, I would still be concerned about something that is retrofitted. After all, those techs are not as experienced as the factory assembly techs. Maybe MINI would be willing to exchange your vehicle for a new one built to the same spec?

 

Ahem, I don't buy your story. Have you taken the car to a different dealer for a second opinion? The heater works with heat generated from the engine, so I find your claim hard to believe.

 

Wow, that is some story. I'm curious if you have the Automatic Climate Control option? While it is true that the heat comes from the motor (in reference to that last message), you still need to have that heat guided from the motor to the passenger compartment, through hoses and such. It's hard to believe they'd forget to install that stuff, but that pic of a car from a hot climated part of the world shows how very different some models of car need to be built to satisfy a world-wide marketplace. (I wonder if there are any MINI's elsewhere in the world built with A/C only?

I suppose they might just mean that the climate control unit is bad, and needs to be replaced, but why BS about something like that? I can just see these poor guys, the mechanics, with all this heating system tubing from England, trying to get it properly installed. Sorry, but I can't help laughing at the picture. (They'll likely have to remove a lot of components to get it installed right.) I hope that they get this problem fixed for you, as properly as possible, and that you and your MINI will soon be happily together again, motoring down the road.

However, if they can't get this problem properly fixed, in a satisfactory manner, then I would highly recommend that you push for a whole 'nother vehicle. This is a bad enough goof that you certainly might be able to pull that off. In either case, hang in there, and good luck.

 

Well thanks for your input, but I too am very car savey and understand how heating works.It actually takes the heat from the coolant not the motor, this is not a 1968 VW beetle with heat exchangers. And yes in modern day cars there are 2 systems. There was no harness for the auto a/c, to activate the motors (misssing as well) to pull the missing cables to open the ducts from the heater core. The blower blows just fine, there is just no way for the heat to go anywhere, the flaps are stuck in the closed position.
great fun. And the auto A/C unit does not throw any codes in diagnostic mode.

 

I find the story a little hard to follow also. On most engines the heater hoses must be in place or coolant would run out everywhere. The air flow duct work seems that it would be the same as the AC ductwork......is it gone too. The same blower motor is used for AC and heat. I can see perhaps something in the control switches or heater coil bypass being left out. Maybe that's what he means.

Which componets weren't there is something I'd like to know.

 

From what I gathered from the service advisor since I am not permitted to enter the garage and ask someone working on the car:

the control harness for the heat is missing, some cables to open the heat exchanger and the ducts from the heat exchanger to the dash ducts. He also mentioned something about motors needing to pull the cables as I have the auto climate control.
In my previous passat one of those motors died and I lost my floor vents, so I do not know how the MINI is setup.

Everything for the A/C is there and works great. And everything from the engine to the heater core is there. The car makes heat, it has no way of delivering it.

I hope that clears up my ranting from earlier, I have been pretty annoyed by the situation and finally got to putting it up on NAM.

Does anyone have the BENTLEY manual, and can maybe look to see what, where and how many of these things are not in place.

All of this info I have no personal view of, just from the service advisor, so I do not even know the whole story!!! THANKS

 

Now that STINKS. You wait foor months for your perfect ride only to find out she missing vital equipment. I am speachless. It sounds like you have a pretty good service dept and I'm sure your baby will be returned in tiptop condition.

 

Thanks for the additional info. After thinking about your situation I think you should demand a new car with all the pieces you paid for already in place. If you purSUE this course I'll bet you will be successful.

Another thing, it really pisses me off if the dealership doesn't want me to talk to the mechanic or set foot in the shop. The way I've always handled this, (and I've never been told to leave), is I just walk into the shop, go over to my car and start a conversation with the mechanic. Most mechanics actually like to discuss the problem and seem glad that you have a real interest in your car.

R.E.

 

That really sucks

It also sucks your dealership was clueless as to the difference in HVAC from '04 to '05, but quite honestly, that's par for the course.

You should be in contact with MINIUSA about your car regarding missing assembly components and incompetent dealership. They really should be bending over backwards to give you a fully assembled vehicle. Also try to understand that your car is certainly the exception and not the rule!

The very best of luck in getting all settled and working,
Ryan

 

I think the only parts which could conveniently have been left out during assembly are electronic control components. I don't see how they could leave out major mechanical components like the coolant hoses or the heater core without some major improvising!

If that's the case, maybe they won't have to dismantle your dashboard. But, obviously, you should get a good description of what they had to do during the repair so you can be on the lookout for problems in the affected areas later.

Sounds like a lemon law case in the making...

 

WOW!!! Good luck, I haven't had to use my heat yet, hope they got it right.

 

It sounds to me like you ordered auto climate control, but other than the control panel itself, the car was assmebled as a manual climate control car.

That would explain the wrong harness (missing harness), lack of motors to move the flaps, etc. In a car with manaul climate control, all those flaps are directly controlled by cables actuated by the **** itself. To make the auto climate control work in your car, the dealer would need to do a complete re-wire job, plus install several electrical motors at un-reachable places. Basically a complete retrofit of the auto climate control. They have to take pretty much disassemble the dash to do it. It is definitely NOT an easy job. And no matter how good the tech is, it will probably never come out the same as assembled from the factory.

I think it might be a whole lot easier to have them swap out the control panel, put in the manual climate control, and refund you the difference in price (plus a bit more for customer goodwill). Your dealer basically have to retrofit the whole auto climate system, which is not easy to do. If I were you I'd seriously think about asking for a new car. Someone really goofed on the assembly line......

 

Hmmm, maybe your car was assembled on the Monday following England's Drink Like a Banshee Day.

Not since the days of the MGA have English cars come standard with no heaters for the US market. Still, makes for a great story to tell the grandkids in about 50 years.

 

Demand a brand new replacement car ASAP!! This was a boo-boo at the factory and it is not your responsability! You paid for a brand new "virgin" car not for a car taped up and rectified after the fact.

 

HBO5MCS,

Sounds like certain folks were calling BS and saying they didn't believe you to now saying to demand a new car.

Man what a mess you got there. I agree, that a new replacement car is the correct resolution. Best of luck getting it all taken care of.

And also, I hope you never find out that your airbags are stuffed with newspaper!

 

If it were my car and it was running flawlessly otherwise I'd just get the manual control panel swapped on, get some kind of compensation (whatever auto C/C costs OEM plus aggravation compensation, say a pulley :smile: reduction ) and use the experience as one heckuva Thanksgiving story for years to come. But then that's me. Jimbo

 

Don't swap out the control panel! You paid for the ACC (be it packaged or individual) which leads me to believe that you wanted it.

If you had wanted to buy a car that DIDN'T have everything you wanted, then you wouldn't have waited howevermany months to get the perfect car.

So, I say demand a replacement -- unless the retrofit is truly flawless, that is. But don't swap something out just because it'll be "easier". You paid for what you wanted and you didn't get it, so make them make it right.

hip hip to a free market.

 

guess he told me :smile:

 

I noticed in your sigfile that U ordered a premium pak w/no sunroof. Did U order the remaining Prem Pak options seperate? (like I did w/sport pak--just xenons and fogs) Do they (OBC, MFSW) work OK?

Now I know this is a reach, but perhaps some signal got crossed in assembly where you ordered all the prep pak items seperately but, somehow, the manual system was erroneously installed and worse yet, installed with an auto c/c panel? (Not all cars are thoroughly QC'd off the line)

Worse yet, is this a larger problem, perhaps responsible for many of the current VDC delays? Some folks have been getting odd excuses for these delays (oil, emergency brake parts, etc.) so something seems a tad askew

I hope it's a cool day when I get my car, for heat will be one of the first things checked. Jimbo

 

Funny you mentioned this, because soon after reading this thread, I panicked thinking, gosh this guy has a MCS with climate control that he picked up a month ago, just like me. I wracked my brain trying to remember if I ever turned on the heat and if it actually worked. I had to run out to my car to make sure. Mine is fine; makes the car nice and toasty. My heart goes out to the heatless MINI owner though.

 

The components required to restore your system may not be that complicated. I think with proper documentation a tech could replace and install with success. The dash could be re-assembled and be factory snug. Your inspection and operation will tell the story. I've met some excellent techs. The factory has considerable hand assembly. There is no magic from a virgin factory install. They hose things up and if they had caught this in quality control they would of went back in by hand for the fix. You or I would of never known.