I do my own oil/filter changes and tire rotations (every 5,000 miles for both). My last receipt was $8.00 for the BMW filter and $23.00 for a six quart "case" of Mobil 1 5w-30 at Costco. $31.00 is my limit. But the good thing is that the MCS only uses 4.7 qts. so for every 5 cases purchased, I get one freebie of oil.

 

>>Just got home from my appointment at the dealership.
>>
>>" I was surprised at the pricing.
>>-- Oil Change 129.00!
>>-- Tire rotation 139.00!

>>-- A replacement runflat tire (from the dealer) 300.00!!!
>>
>>That's just absurd, but that's BMW labor pricing for ya...

Actually it's not absurd. It is the American way to price things for what the market can bear.
Since your dealer has enough paying BMW customers (I assume) they permit prices to remain high. If no one agreed to the prices then they would have to lower the prices to attract business (at least often enough to remain in business).

Therefore it is not really "expensive to own a MINI", no more so than owning a BMW of any model and submitting to extra work.

There might be more of an arguement for "It's expensive to fully mod a MINI" but only with respect to popular sporty cars by Honda/Acura or Toyota/Lexus. Audis and BMWs are pretty pricey to mod.

 

Total maintenance costs for 2 MINIs so far = $0


Our MINIs have certainly been much, much, much cheaper to maintain than our previous Honda/Acura cars which required frequent and pricey service maintenance intervals.

 

The fact that some people are willing to pay exorbinate prices for certain services doesn't make these prices any less "absurd", at least not to me. I'd say a $129 oil change is ridiculous on a $130,000 BMW, absurd on my $19,000 MIN. A $129 tire rotation is absurd on either.


R.E.

 

$129 for a tire rotation? This should be noted in the Dealer rating section.

My Goodyear dealer would not even charge me to rotate mine (and they did it with hand tools), but I do know him for a while.

If it's too cold to do it yourself, I don't think any garage shoud charge more than $20.

Regards,
Red

 

I dunno, in europe the don't change oil for even longer periods becasue of synthetics they use, the mini coudl go even logner than suggested I was told, but they knew that pushing more than 10k for americans would make us suspisious of it abilities!... I jsut think it's funny, 3k miles is reidiculus, unless your a endurnace driver or you use crude oil. :smile: