Hendrick BMW is building a new dealership for MINI in Charlotte! The dealership is slated to open on November 19th, 2004. Hendrick apparently owns MINI of Charleston, so I am curious to hear people's experiences with MINI of Charleston.

 

Yes I am also curious to how Hendrick treats customers seeing as how I am suppose to pick up my 05 MCS tomorrow at Flow but Hendrick will only be about 30 minutes away

 

I live in Salisbury, so from home either dealership will be about 40 miles/minutes away. But I work in Charlotte, so Hendrick would be a big benefit to me from that aspect.

 

Wish we could get a dealer closer to Raleigh. That's the biggest downfall for me is taking off a day of work to take my car up to get serviced!

Michelle

 

Oh Michelle, you have it made! I was talking to Mike Barrett at Eurofest and he mentioned an owner out west that was 1400 miles from the nearest dealer.

 

Holy Crap, 1400 miles? I would get the manual and some tools. I think it would be cheaper, than all those gas miles. Geez

 

That's a lot more than I would want to drive! I don't mind going to Flow, I just hate wasting vacation days for that! That really sucks for me!

Michelle

 

Well I got my 04 MC from MOC and I have only had 1 problem my sunroof gasket was leaking. I showed them the car problem they ordered the part and installed it the next week. I asked about my upcoming 1st service and was told call in a week or so before you need it.

Art

 

My experiences with Hendrick MINI in Charleston are very good. I paid MSRP plus $184 "administrative fee".

However Hendrick in Charlotte is known to be snobbish and not very customer friendly. It will be intresting to see how this turns out. The thing I worry about is will the mechanics be well trained? The mechanics at Flow and Century are great. I think I'd still drive all the way to Flow to get my car fixed.

My experiences with Hendrick here in Charlotte are based on a few of my friends that own Lexus's. One of my friends bought her Lexus out of state because it was cheaper and the dealership here gave her a very hard time when it came time to fix it. They did eventually fix the car for her but not without making her experience a poor one. This is only a couple of people so take this opinion with a grain of salt.

 

My experience with Hendrick Acura, in Charlotte, when buying an new car, was so distasteful, that I ended up not buying from them or anyone else at the time. I certainly hope they get their act together with the MINIs.

 

I've had no complaints with Hendricks BMW in Charlotte. They were very helpful when we were only considering a 5 or an X5 and usually allow us to test drive on our own. Their service people are great--what little experience I've had with them. We always buy our parts there--lots of parts :smile: and they've always been very helpful.

Free car washes and roses every time I can't wait for them to open!

Debi

 

Roses??? I'm gonna have to have a talk withe the folks at Century!

 

I had a GREAT experience at Mini of Charleston. After my buy, I received about 15 thank you letters.

 

Met the guy from the new dealership on Sat. He seems like a pretty good fellow and seems really interested in getting behind the MINI people in the area. He was even talking of hosting Sat. morning coffee get togethers.

Sadly, it won't do me a lot of good as Flow and them are about equal distance from me. Though, I will admit, I'd rather be between 2 good dealers than 2 crappy ones!

 

Weighing in with my experience with Hendrick of Charleston service....



When considering the purchase, I brought up the quesiton of the logisitcs of service, since I lived two hours away in Columbia.

Response - we have loaners so that you can at least go enjoy the Charleston area while getting your MINI serviced. That is really all we can do, and we are happy to do that for our out of town customers.

After the purchase - new message is that sometimes we will have a loaner for you sometimes not, but we can always give you a ride to locations in the area (like downtown/old charleston) then come get you when the car is finished

My last service was on 9/23

New story - whoops, we are really sorry we don't have a loaner, or anybody to give you a ride

Then.......parts were needed, one a back order situation

I knew I had to be back in Charleston on business 10/29, so asked if I could get the rest of the work done on that date.

Service Rep response - As long as we get the parts in by then, we will make sure you are in and out on the 29th. We will call when the parts come in. I was led to believe that an appointment was set for the 29th, and we would just have to cancel it if for some reason the part still wasn't in.

Tuesday, October 26 having heard nothing from the dealer about the parts, I called them to see if we should cancel the appointment on the 29th, or if the parts might possibly be in by then

Response - the parts have been in for a while now. sorry we forgot to call. No we can't work on your car this Friday.



My main complaint with this dealer in terms of service is not the work they actually do once you get the car in.

My primary problem with them is that they make absolutely no effort to incorporate the fact that some of thier customers have to come a fair distance, and take that into consideration when determining what an appropriate level of customer service really is.

Of course, most entities selling you something suffer a great falling off in service once the check has cleared.

 

Their staff has been excellent at Mini of Charleston to all of my minor things the have serviced and done warranty work. They also follow up real well to make sure you are happy with the work that they have accomplished. Also I bought my 2003 MC used with low mileage from another dealer and they have treated me like one of their finest old time customers. I would say they are top notch. Derek

 

Moorlockx if you have a chance to talk to the guy from Hendrick again can you ask him how they work with modded coopers? Flow told me if I put a pulley on it my warranty will be voided, I know it would have to be something that comes from the pulley but just curious if Hendrick is easier on modded

 

I'll ask, but MiniNC in Charlotte will probably see him a lot sooner than I will. If he doesn't post something in the next couple of days just drop him a pm. I'm sure he'll be glad to check out the situation.

 

I have to admit I am not incredibly impressed yet with Mini of Charleston Service. MY 05 MCS is only a week old and I went in to make an appointment for service. I told them I didn't think it was an emergency (turn the wheel all the way to the left and the tire scrapes the wheel well and some other minor things).

I got an appointment made for 3 weeks from last Wed. and was told we do not have loaners available but maybe if they would if the car was going to be down for more than a day.

We shall see the Monday after this how they treat me.....

 

I took my car in to replace the sunroof gasket. It is a 4 hour operation and I was offered a loaner. So I am impressed with MoC.


Art

 

'Tis the season...maybe? I emailed them for a checkup and it was only a week....this was a few months ago, so maybe they're just uber busy with everyone traveling over the holidays? Let's hope this is the case as I need to get the wiper scratch taken care of.