My head is going to pop right off my shoulders and skyrocket to at least the troposphere.



On Thursday, with 20 miles remaining on my warranty, I left my car at the dealer for some final "service". Chief among complaints was a steering wheel that shook pretty badly at highway speeds -- a recent development.

I picked it up yesterday evening, about 5:45 -- dealership closed at 6.

Well, to fix the shaking they "balanced" (I use quotes because, as it turns out, their idea of balance, much like their idea of "service" is theoretical at best) and rotated my tires. My first thought was; "Hey, I don't think my tires are supposed to be rotated..." but I decided to check before I made a fuss.

Driving home (dealership closed at this point and I live an hour away) my car felt HORRIBLE. THe shaking was not only NOT fixed, it was about 30 times WORSE, such that I could see the wheel shaking back and forth. Worst at about 55mph.

So I called MINI and MINI said; "Oh no... we don't recommend you rotate your tires. Call the dealership and have them unroatate them -- also, sorry that they didn't fix the problem."

I called the dealership this morning:

ME: You weren't supposed to rotate my tires
MANAGER: Yes, we do.
ME: MINI says you aren't supposed to rotate my tires
MANAGER: They're wrong
ME: .... ....... ...
MANAGER: They just tell you that becasue they want to sell you tires
ME: Nevertheless, you are going to un-rotate my tires, becasue your parent company thinks you should. And beyond that, the shaking is now worse
MANAGER: Oh... then you need new tires.
ME: I'm sorry -- who did you say wanted to sell me more tires? My tires are FINE. I've got at least 5K left (according to wear bars) on the former front tires, and the former back tires are really, really fine.
MANAGER: You'll have to call back Monday, then, to make an appointment.

 

Then they'll tell you you're over the warranty mileage, so it's on you.

 

I dunno Kel,

I rotate my tires at home every 4,000 miles. I think it helps wear and avoidance of the dreaded shimmy. I'd have to side with your dealer and not MINIUSA on this one. Balancing is important, but so is even tire wear. Re-torque your lugs to 90ft.-lbs. Maybe if the dealer used a pneumatic wrench you have unevenly tightened wheels.

 

Toast, sweetie, I'm so sorry something like this happened to you.

When you say shake/wabble whatever it is, are the lug bolts tight on all the wheels? even tires that are rotated should not give you so much out of balance action that you would see the tire wabble. Check it out before you drive the MINI again please.

 

Every 4,000 miles is fine, but if the tires have 15-20,000 or more unrotated miles, they should probably be left as they are. There comes a time when rotating is unsafe, I think.

 

Front a rear tires wear differently, if they have not been roatated at all and have lots of wear that could be "a part" of the problem.
Dealership could have handled this much better than they did.
Cheers you still own an awsome car

 

My input is "medical" rather than technical...

I'd consider getting that problem taken care of locally rather than driving for an hour with the steering wheel (and probably the rest of the car?) shaking that badly. Your body could really be taking a beating if you're driving with the car in that condition.

 

That sux, sorry to hear it! Mark another dealer on the 'worthless list'. I really wish there was a section here on NAM for Dealer ratings. Maybe I can convince another site to start one...

 

dang this sucks.


yeh, let's hear the full name of the manager and which dealer you
went to. That's just crappy service.

 

I've rotated mine to keep the wear even. I don't race or autocross, and I'm trying to get the maximum mileage out of the original tires. Once they are gone, I'll replace all four at the same time.

I check my tires with a tire thickness gauge. I've got right at 9/32" on the rear and about 9.5 / 32" on front. When the fronts get down to where they are just a little under the rears, I'll switch them again.

 

I have 2 things to suggest. It may well be tire related. Now that it is worse makes me think the bad tire has been moved to the front. Jack up the front of the car & spin a tire by hand & hold your hand lightly against the tread , then sidewalls. Do you feel any humps? Also you can try trading out wheels with a local friend To rule out the tires being the problem. Sounds to me like a pregnant tire.

 

Thanks for all the replies...

I didn't mean to infer that I think all the new shaking is coming from the illicit rotation. In fact, I figured that probably had very little to do with it, however I hadn't considered that my tires had never been rotated and thus had completely uneven front to back treadwear.

And I'll even concede that I need new (former)front tires -- I just checked them again and they're pretty low. I'll need them before Xmas, but they're not bald. The (former) rear tires, however, don't need replaced at all. So there's mega-disparity between front to back treadwear.

I'm going to check the lugs and spin them.

I would have the work done locally, however MINI has said that the dealership will have to fix my problems for free. Hooray MINI.

And finally, I'd like someone to explain to me the following:

At no point did NEW COUNTRY MINI (in Hartford, CT -- service manager's name slipping my mind at the moment) service techs tell me that I need new tires. As bald tires present a safety hazard, I would think they are obligated (and hopefully intelligent enough) to tell me; "Hey -- you're getting shake because your front tires suck." At the very least, if my front tires needed to be replaced, pronto, I would have expected them to say that they were rotating them until I could buy new ones. And as the need for new tires would represent the possibility of revenue generation for the dealership, I would really expect them to tell me if new tires were in order*. AT NO POINT DID ANYONE TELL ME I NEEDED NEW TIRES. So, ok, they put the most worn tires at the rear -- if it were ONLY bad tires that were causing the initial shimmy, I would expect the rather good tires being moved to the front to at least diminish the problem. I certainly wouldn't expect it to be exacerbated unless a.) there was another, underlying problem, b.) treadwear disparity was too great, or c.) tires were improperly balanced/inflated/mounted/secured.

In other words, the service manager telling me that, if the problem wasn't fixed by rotation then the tires need replaced is

COMPLETELY FREAKING STUPID.

* I would never actually purchase tires from the dealership, so this would be moot -- but they don't know that.

 

I can't believe I forgot to mention this:

At the point I realized I needed to scream in the general direction of Leif because my car was not fixed, I pulled into a Target parking lot with Leif in tow. I went to exit the car (to commence parking lot rant) and the &$**&% door latch cable broke (AGAIN), thus leaving me stuck in the car!!!!

Ok, I wasn't stuck exactly. I can now get out of the car by putting the window down and opening it from the outside handle... but if you can imagine me, already with a headfull of steam previously reserved for OT:P, pulling the latch to no effect... then pulling again... then looking confused and trying to unlock the car only to realize it WAS unlocked... then having the truth of the situation wash over me in a semi-psychotic haze...



PS... I must have sounded a little unhinged, because MINI also guarenteed me that the dealer would have to fix the cable under a parts warranty. Actually, Randy at MINIUSA was fantastic and should consider a career in psychology.

 

Toast, Sorry to hear about your experience up there. Ever since Bill Pelletier left New Country the MINI service dept just went downhill. I even sent a email to MINI letting them know that they were losing one of the "good ones" but they unfortunately couldn't do anything about it. I did, however, get to know one of the MINI Techs that worked on my car up there, who now works for MINI of Fairfield County, it's a lot farther to drive, but he's the only one I will let wrench on my car. Knock on wood I haven't had to bring it in for anything, but if I do, that's where it's going.
I just quit MJ Sullivan recently, but I still have connections there. If you need to check the balance on your wheels/tires or if you need tires just let me know, i'd be glad to help you out. (even though you didn't make it to my run...just kidding)

 

I forgot to mention that I have the set of 16's that came on my car if you wanted to try them on and check the shake problem you have.

 

hey tell scott i said hi next time u go up to new country

 

Thanks and thanks, Partsman!!!

I guess, then, that there is a third kicker to my sad little story: I missed the run in order to preserve warranty mileage for the service in question!


PS. Thanks for the reminder, lvb


****************************EDIT****************** ********

THe saga continues:

One of the other problems I had New Country "fix" was my stereo. I've had trouble with it in the past and recently the treble and bass had spontaneously zeroed themselves out. So I would get into the car, turn on the music, wonder why on earth it sounded so queer, and then realize that treb. & bass were zeroed. This happened twice.

Their response was to replace the head unit -- without giving me a manual, so now it's all weird and says; "REG OFF" when I turn it on, and I have "INF" where "PTY" used to be, and "TRAFFIC", which presumably searches for traffic alerts, I don't know.

Foreign-to-me stereo notwithstanding: IT DOESN'T WORK!!!!!

When I use the scan function (or whatever it's called) to look for radio stations, it just cycles continuously over the entire FM band, pausing on some stations for less than a second (the ones I'm supposed to be getting?) then continuing, without actually making a sound.

Now, as I had numerous local radio stations before I got my stereo "fixed", I'm not entirely inclined to believe that they all spontaneously stopped broadcasting the very second I got my car back...

:impatient :impatient :impatient :impatient :impatient :impatient :impatient :impatient

 

lol damn can u say issues. when u turn the radio on press the rds button unitll it says reg off then u won't get the message anymore may or maynot help reception

 

By pressing the INF button, my new radio (which plays MP3s -- cool!) now works perfectly! (Leif actually pressed the button which set my world 1/3 right)


The new radio is a bit different than my old one...

 

Think of it as an upgrade...

 

Yikes, Toastie, sorry to hear of all your assorted problems! I don't think these folks at New Country realize who they're messing with. I hope you eventually get all this sorted out, even if you have to drive up here to Peabody to make it happen! :smile: I do hope that you present New Country with the concise logical proof of their stupidity that you presented so nicely in post #12. Poor Ollie.

 

Is it possible that one of your tires is out of round, and you do need new ones? I had this problem on an old Jeep - even with plenty of tread left on them.

 

I had my tires rotated at 15,000... the MINI dealer says that MINI recommends a front to rear rotation, but not right to left.

 

As far as needing new tires -- I'd not be surprised at all to find out that I need 2 new ones. I'd be mildly shocked to find out that all 4 needed replaced.

How does a tire get "out of round"? Sounds painful


Thanks Chris -- Shoulda never gotten involved with New Country...

 

by driving on these "nice smooth" ct roads is how a tire would get out of round