$200.00 sounds a little high, on the other side, it is going to be at a Mini dealer, so expect good job with a higher price. Would I pay it? Absolutely not, so I think you should by-pass the dealer and go somewhere else.

 

Buy the tires and rims pre mounted.

Then at the delivery bring a floor jack and do the tire change right there in the dealer.

 

I'd go with a Tire Rack "partner" installer and forget the dealer. I did and the results were great.

It was still about $85.00.

Besides, what if you have a problem with the tires... how anxious do you think the dealer will be to help you out?

 

My two cents; I'd leave the runflats on till they wear out, then I'd ditch them and never look back. That way you have a year or so to worry about it. Second $200 really isn't that bad, for them to "wrestle" those pos runflats off of there and mount your new tires. I think it's pretty cool of them to even do it. Also, don't say you weren't warned if you end up with some broken beads on your runflats if Bubba's tire shop takes them off.

 

Maybe I'm insane and delusional, but I thought there was a post from PurplePeopleEater saying that some dealerships (like Classic) were very accommodating, and others like ________ (can't remember which) were less so. And then a reply from the original poster saying something like "finally, someone sees this the way I do!" or something to that effect. No huge loss if the posts were deleted, but it seemed strange to me. Apologies if I'm confusing threads.

 

LOL...I remembered those posts too after you wrote this and was thinking the same thing...then I remembered there is a duplicate thread on this in 1st Gear...

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ad.php?t=53726

 

Ah. Well, it's dgboggs's fault for confusing me, then. In return, I got him rustled up about commies and sicced teammightyminiz on him.

 

 

It took me until this morning to realize you started two threads on two sub-forums with the same gripe....where's the moderator when you need em? All this banter has made me realize a fundamental difference in thinking between me and some others here....I don't want to take my car back to any dealer if I don't have to. Dealers in general aren't known for their cheap, cheerful service, this goes across just about any brand. And secondly, there is nothing particularly exotic about the MINI, its runflats, or any other part of its design. There is absolutely no truth that the dealer is the only one qualified to do work on it (other than warranty items), so if you solely depend on that, you're just setting yourself up for disappointment.

 

Maybe its just me, but $200 for installation of different tires doesn't seem too bad. I know of a dealer that wanted $300 for the purchase and installation of the bonnet stripes($79 for stripes, $221 installation). Needless to say, the stripes were not installed by the dealer.

 

I have seen several people (some of my local club member friends, and customers) have runflats destoyed by tire stores. They really are a lot harder to deal with. I even know a tech that is pretty much banned from even touching a run flat.

 

To each their own, I'm sure more than one runflat has been destroyed by a dealer tech as well. I'd still say the odds are better at a fulltime tire store versus something that is not the dealer's primary service. I've been using a local Discount Tire store near my house for years with plenty of expensive performance tires, and they've never fouled anything.

 

I bought a set of barely used run-flats from someone here on NAM. I went to tirerack's site to find qualified installers and they all balked at the run flats. The few who agreed wanted 40 dollars a tire, minimum. One even wanted 70 a tire. I finally went to the dealer, since I knew they had the experience with all of the BMW's that use run-flats as well. They charged me a 70 dollar winter tire changeover fee. That was for all four. Even at 200, I think they are right in line with other installers. Call around and see what other installers are asking. Make sure you tell them you have run-flats because their whole story changes after that.

 

I had Discount Tire swap out my runflats for BFGoodrich g-force Sports (which I HIGHLY recommend by the way). They did a great job, knew what they were doing. And they don't charge any more to deal with runflats than nonrunflats either. This is in the Dallas area.

FYI, there is a good market for the runflats. Don't give them to Discount - take them with you and sell them here in the MarketPlace forum or on eBay. It costs about $40 to ship them anywhere in the U.S. by FedEx ground.

/gary

 

Yeah, I had placed two threads, I was unsure of which forum to use, and there seemed to be a delay or something after I posted the first one (making me think that it didn't post), so I made this one.


I still think they're high on the price. I wouldn't have said a word if it would have been around 130.00. I just thought that since I'm buying the car from them, and buying it LOADED, that they might be willing to do me a 'favor'. 220.00 doesn't seem like much of a favor.

I had an xB before this, and I had TERRIBLE experiences with that Toyota dealer. Along the lines of them SCRATCHING MY PAINT and then trying to deny it before I even took delivery(among a list of other things)!!!
So, now I'm very apphrehensive about dealers in general
I am still excited about my car, although I called Mini this morning and my car is going to be delayed by a week

 

I'm not sure who i'm most worried about here...the Dealership or you? Oh well, life goes on

 

In a perfect world we'd all like to get pretty much anything for free or done quite cheaply, unfortunately reality isn't like that. The dealer made you an offer and then it is up to you to decide what you do. You saved all kinds of money going through the tirerackso now you'll have to just bite the bullet and spend a bit more to get them mounted. See the positive though, soon you'll have a cool car with tires you love.

I personally also bought tires to replace my runflats before I received the car, but I bought them already mounted on aftermarket wheels. When I called my motoring advisor whether I could ship them there and have them replaced asap, she advised me that the car had to come of the lot with original equipment. She was still helpful though and offered avfew alternatives including buying the wheels from me. In the end "I decided" to drive the car to my house, swap the wheels there, and sell the others on ebay.

As for the delay that stinks for sure, but the dealer has about as much control over that scenario as you have.
Cheers,
Herbert

 

I looked at our moderation logs and there have been no posts deleted from this thread (or even any edits made to posts in the threads). Frankly if there is a problem with a dealership this is the site to let people know about it. All we request is that you do it as constructively as possible so that the dealership will be more likely to want to help you and others going forward.

As for the Dealer Rating system I've said, in the past, that it had to be completely rewritten to work with vBulletin (which we migrated to in summer of 2004). I've be unable to get a big block of time to work on this until recently but I hope to have it back online (and much improved) before Christmas. In the past the ratings helped raise the bar at the dealerships which is why I want to get it back in place as soon as I can.

My apologies for taking the thread off-topic but I wanted to address the concerns regarding deleted threads.

Mark

 

Chris,

I just went through this thread and our moderation logs on the server and it shows that no posts have been removed or edited in this thread.

Dave

 

ha. you beat me to it.

 

I might win the prize for this thread.

My 2006 MCC is ready, and I will pick it up in the next few days. I already purchased 15x7 SSRs with 205/55-15 tires mounted and balanced from Tire Rack, and I plan to immediately swap out the OEM 7-holes.

I am willing to swap them myself, but I thought it might be nice to have the new wheels already on when I took delivery. I was hoping that my dealer (MINI of San Francisco) might offer to do this 5 minute swap as a complimentary service for a new car, although dealers being what they are, I was half expecting them to come back with a labor quote.

My MA asked the service department what they are willing to do. They came back and said they'll only swap the wheels if they do a complete realignment, for $400! The service department told my MA some kind of nonsense about otherwise voiding the warranty.

It left me speechless, and of course I'll simply swap the wheels myself. It just isn't worth the effort to push back on this issue. It leaves me with little confidence in the dealership, and nor have they made me feel like a valued customer.