Not sure how familiar people are with tracking their MINIs from England to the USA. Just to pass on some first hand experience... a good many MINIs are missing one or more boats while waiting at the terminal in England to sail to the USA.

Case in point. My car was scheduled to ship on the Takasago boat that left Saturday. My car and about 500 others were sitting at the terminal. My car had been sitting at the terminal already just about a week. Well, my car and a whole lost of others missed the Takasago!

There are other people who have missed up to 3 boats!! The system of loading the cars on the boats is very odd. There seems to be no rhyme or reason how they are loaded. Your car may make its boat without a problem or even miss 2 or 3 boats.

So, if your expecting your MINI... don't count on that timeline you have in your head too much. There is a whole heap of people who have been waiting much too long... up to a month past due!!

 

I just recieved an email from Wallenius Wilhelmsen who is the company who runs the boats your MINIs will be traveling on.

They say their policy is to load cars "first ones into terminal, become first ones loaded onto ships." But he goes on to say this is not the case right now. He says that they only have one parking structure in operation as the others are being repaved. He says this has made things difficult. He says this will soon be fixed.

The Wallenius Wilhelmsen rep also went on to say they are having problems with their tracking software and that some of the tracking information on their web site in regards to which cars are loaded and not loaded onto the boat may be incorrect. They said they are also researching this and will get back to me asap.

So the long and short of it is the Wallenius Wilhelmsen doesn't have their stuff together and it is just causing mass frustration!!

 

My car has been sitting in port for over a month....I talked to a Mini rep on the phone and she informed me that they DO NOT SHIP IN ORDER OF PRODUCTION (which is really stupid). So you really cannot always go based on what you are told from the dealership.....it apparently doesn't matter whose is done first (obviously since I would already have mine). I am pretty angry about this.

 

Damn them and their repaving! A rep from there told me pretty much the same stuff the other day and in addition the website wasn't working properly either so even if I had wanted to track it and even if my car was on a boat yet I wouldn't have known it because I kept getting error messages. This is the most annoying car buying experience I have ever had.

 

>>Damn them and their repaving! A rep from there told me pretty much the same stuff the other day and in addition the website wasn't working properly either so even if I had wanted to track it and even if my car was on a boat yet I wouldn't have known it because I kept getting error messages. This is the most annoying car buying experience I have ever had.

Is your MINI just a Cooper and not an S?

If you and others are looking for MINI Coopers are MSRP, the dealer here in Salt Lake City Utah has about 20 regular Coopers just sitting on their lot at MSRP with no waiting list. They have about every color and package there is. But they do have a 9 month waiting list for S models.

 

A regular Cooper, but unfortunately I am nowhere near Salt Lake City....I wish there was a better dealership near me because I have had a number of problems.....I am just going to try to wait it out.

 

I also missed the boat.

Browsing through our Booking Number, I see that the a little less than half the MINIs made it on the boat. And those that made it are almost entirely MINI's that arrived at the terminal latest (July 11-13). Mine has been there since the 9th.

I'm bound for California, it could be a wait.



sixfoot6

 

Mine sat there for over a month... Now it's just 100 miles away!!! Hey, can someone go to Herb Chambers Mini today, or tomorrow, and tell me how my baby is doing? She's an Electric Blue S with white roof, and sun roof!

 

My MCS was built July 5, checked the shipper and showed it also on the Takasago, but the booking date was June 10. Maybe someone doing the booking is dropping the ball, maybe thats why so many MINIS have missed the boat. So far everything on sch. for August 5 docking in Port Hueneme.