When I arrived at my dealership to pick up my brand new 07 Mini Cooper the sales woman took me to my car and explained all of the cars functions. When she got to the rear wiper it failed to operate. The service manager said it could be a bad fuse but he was unable to locate it. Now he says it may be a programing problem. To make a long story short I now have to bring my new car in for service. I hadn't even pulled out of the dealership before I was faced with my first system failure. I hope this isn't a sample of things to come.

 

Keep your chin up. Sounds minor to me. Something that small could go wrong on any car. I would feel the same as you though and wish you swift resolution followed by many miles of happy motoring.

dean.

 

Yeah, it's a minor annoyance. Had it been me, I'd have left it there. I wouldn't have paid, either. That kind of action helps them do better.

 

The other day I called the service department to ask a question about something minor (can't recall what), and I was told they hadn't even had any of the '07s in for service. This was over 2 weeks into the deliveries. I've had no problems other than the cruise control "drop-out," and that's pretty minor. Everything works, no wind noise from the sunroof, no rattles, etc. Nothing. (Knock on wood).

 

That is what I would have done...

 

Some day I'll tell you a funny story (now it's funny) about my previous vehicle, a first model year Ford Expedition, that had a security system malfunction days after delivery. Two flat bed trips because the security system shut it completely down. End of story being important was that the technician who final prepped the truck had plugged the security system harness in backwards and it was simply jiggling out. If I had known it was right under the dashboard in easy reach I could have just plugged in right. Maybe you just have a loose or unplugged wiring harness connector back there. They'll find it and it will be free. Think of the trip to the dealer as just another motoring event.

 

I had this happen with the AC system after about two months of ownership...I hadn't had a chance to use it since I took delivery in January. Once that was sorted all was good.

 

My rear wiper occasionally stops in mid-stroke. Of course, it didn't happen when we were at the dealer. =op

Zip

 

I was the first to take delivery of an R56 from my dealer and the first to return for service. On the drive home, the A/C stopped cooling. Repair was to replace a faulty O-ring, dry and recharge the system. About 2 hours wait.
It was inconvenient but I won't complain. The EXACT same thing happened with my wife's 06 Honda Odyssey.

 

I think it's just a bit of anxiety from "all" of the horror stories some people have seen. In retrospect, if I was you, I would be bummed too, but shortly realize it's a little problem, and should be easily fixed. I wouldn't worry about having more problems with your Mini though. Little things like these happen on new cars of all brands alot more than most people expect. I worked for two different new car dealerships (neither one was a Mini dealership), and I was the guy that did new car inspections/prep. While the brand I was working on wasn't rated as reliable as Mini's, most of them came from the factory just fine, while some would have the odd problem, and I remember one even had a seal around one of the transaxle shafts in backwards!

Don't worry, your car isn't a lemon, something simple was probably just missed during the build of your car. I tell people little things like this happen with every brand, even the almighty Honda's and Toyota's experience it.

EDIT: btw, got any pics of the new car :D

 

EricVonZipper's post made my day!

Here's to getting that fixed in a timely manner,

 

It'll have to wait for my next oil change service (~4k miles). I'm not going back for something that minor.

Zip

 

You guys won't believe this but as I was motoring today it started to rain so just for the hell of it I turned on the rear wiper. To my suprise IT WORKED! I wonder what caused the thing to kick in out of the blue like that?

 

Loose electrical connection.

You were driving, hit a bump and jiggled it enough to make contact once again.

Guessing, of course.