I ordered a Mini on April 8. The salesperson (can't really call her a MA because she knew very little about the car) had me sign the order with "I agree" and told me the car would be delivered in about 4 months. She added that the order wouldn't actually be put in for a month, so I had that time if I decided to change anything on it.
I called her 2 days later and changed the color of the dash and headliner and added a silver roof. She said she would FAX me a new "I agree" to sign and return. Well I could never get her to FAX me that and she always had a different excuse. She then told me she had entered the order (this is one week after my originally ordering the car) and that I could just look on Miniusa.com's owner's lounge to see that my correct order is in.
Have any of you been able to get details of your order from the Miniusa website? All that it tells me is the body color of my car. Maybe I'm worrying needlessly, but it's been 6 weeks and I'm still not certain she entered the changes I made.

 

My order details have never shown, but you can see them in the code of the page. Just click on the Order Details, then right-click and choose View Page Source (or choose this from the menu). Scroll down through the code until you reach an <embed> tag. There will be two lines that have all of your order details run together.

 

What if you go to the dealer in person? That way, no excuses, and SHE can show you the order on MINIUSA.

 

Why would she have to wait a month to place the order? And where are you that you would have to wait 4 months for delivery?

 

Sounds like this sales person has given you some misinformation (a month to place the order?) and failed to follow up on her responsibilities (no fax for the changes you requested). If it were me, I'd go to the dealership and request proof that the changes you requested were submitted. If she can't accommodate this, ask for a supervisor. It won't be funny if your car shows up and doesn't have the specs you want. Because, at that point, there's not much you can do (take it as-is or re-order and wait all over again). Just my 2 cents.

 

Call 1 866 ASK MINI - they have all of your order specs available and you should be able to confirm every detail. (I found that the web site never did show all the details of our order.)

That aside, though, there is no acceptable reason why your MA cannot send you the contract showing all of the specs, out the door prices and any other agreed on details (like free mats for example). I would call and ask to speak to the manager to have it sent if necessary, that document is important to ensuring that you receive the car you want at the agreed on price with no funny fees or other unexpected things.

 

Thank you all for your replies, very helpful. I tried what Ryan suggested, but never could find the "view page source." I have been avoiding going back in to the dealer because it is an 85 mile round trip through some heavy traffic areas. I am going to call 1-866-ASK-MINI as suggested and if I don't get anywhere with that I will call the dealer and ask to speak with a manager.

 

Don't call 800 ASK MINI, you won't get anywhere with that since the number is 866

 

You can make changes to the order until it goes into production. Once they start it you cant make changes. But there is nothing from canceling that order and starting another with a different MA. Where did you order from?

 

OK first off options like headliner color doesn't show up in the Owners lounge untill your MINI is on the boat.. What status does the owners lounge say your MINI is in? If it hasn't left the body shop, you can make changes.

Sounds like you got a bump up. Usually a good thing but if you need to make changes....

 

My recollection of the order process for my 2005 MCSa is that if the car has not gone into pre-production stage (where the respective optional equipment items have been sourced), things can be changed; once it is in pre-production stage, the only way things can be changed is almost by an act of god. Based on the changing story (4 month wait; 1 month to order input; then the order got input the next day...), I would be asking to talk to a sales manager and whatever answer I got, I would want in writing.

 

How do you figure that changes can be made prior to when the car leaves the body shop? All of the equipment items have been sourced for the car and are waiting to be installed. BMW works on a Just-in-Time (JIT) inventory model. Sending the earlier inventory back to the supplier is cost-prohibitive and is done only when the supplier sends defective parts. (And if that happens, the supplier's contract is in jeopardy - look at what happened on the Space Gray seat upholstery recently.) Also, one of the desired changes was a Silver roof. That requires a change in paint specification that gets set prior to the car going into the body shop.

A bump up (resulting from an earlier order that got cancelled) could be the explanation for the change in order placement from one month out to the next day. But I would want to get confirmation of that from a sales manager and they should fax (or e-mail) a printout from the order management system so that there is no confusion about what has been ordered. At a minimum, this is a rather sloppy order processing model.

 

Goto the Owners lounge and select the 'Review Order Detail' button. Then if you are using Interner Explorer, just right click anywhere on the page and click on 'View Source'. If you are using Firefox goto the 'View' menu and select 'Page Source' If you are using a Mac, You are on your own, but it will be in a pull down menu somewhere.

 

I finally got into the "view source" window and found the line where it has the order details. And....everything is there that I wanted on the car. That is a relief. Thanks everyone for the help.

 

My order details have never shown up on the Miniusa.com site. I just used the View Source trick.