i need to take cosmo in for the first time. (SES light is on *frown*) since i have to make a minimum of 169 miles trip to the nearest dealer...i am curious, would someone recommend hank aaron MINI over global imports MINI and vice versa? please tell me of any experience with either one. thanks.

 

I've received consistent terrible service from Global.

In short, I would not trust Global to change the oil in my lawnmower, but here is a detailed list of all the "service" I have received:

1) They botched my first oil change and left me with a slow oil leak. I returned to Global with this complaint which they could not find and told me there was no leak. I ended up paying my local mechanic to diagnose it and in 1 minute he found that they had broken the o-ring when installing the filter. I spent 2 days at Global and then had to pay out of pocket to have a competent mechanic fix it.

2) They refused to replace my stress fractured windshield under warranty. When the "pen test" showed no rock chip, the person inspecting it pressed a ball point pen into the crack until he created a chip. Then they asked for $750 to replace it. I left and took my MINI to a competent local glass place and paid out of pocket to have a PPG windshield installed.

3) My rear brakes had a faulty caliper which was dragging a pad. One out of 4 rear pads was worn down to the metal while the other 3 had more than half of the pad remainign. When it failed, and my MINI was towed to Global (I had no choice due to Global being the closest when it failed), they told me that it was normal wear and that I would need to pay full price for a brake job. After many calls to MINI and a wait for a BMW engineer to see my car, they "did me a favor" and replaced the pads and rotors but did not fix the actual problem of the faulty caliper.

4) Guess what? Since they didn't fix it right the first time, it happenned again a year later exactly as it did before. I figured that since Global botched the brake repair the first time, that they should be the ones to fix it right. Again, Global wanted to charge a warranty repair that they botched to the customer for a greater profit to them. This time it took almost a month of fighting with Global, dozens of calls to MINI, a complaint to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, and the threat of a lawsuit to convince them to fix my brakes and replace the faulty caliper. When I picked up my MINI at closing time on a Saturday, I got a mile down the road before I realized that they had not properly bled the brake fluid and I was left with squishy unsafe brakes. Again, I had to take my car to my local competent mechanic to have the brake fluid properly replaced and bled to restore my MINI's brakes.

I've been to Hank Aaron twice since then. Each time, they have fixed what they said they would fix. My only complaint with Hank Aaron is that I made an appointment weeks in advance with the agreement that I would get to Atlanta at the crack of dawn so that my MINI would be the first car worked on in the day. My MINI sat outside for 5 hours before any work began.

In the future, I will be taking our MINI's to Nashville. I know that the Huntsville MINI folks get good service from them and at the very least there is a shopping mall across from the dealership so I won't have to sit bored all day waiting for my MINI to get fixed. Plus, the drive to Nashville is more pleasant than the drive to Atlanta even if it is longer. Since dealership service for Alabama MINI's requires ruining a day, I might as well make it a better day in Nashville.

 

geez. thanks for the information. i wish i was able to make the trip to nashville, but just too far. i will be making my way to hank aaron it looks like. i suspect it will be a day long trip anyways so i will be bringing some things to keep me entertained

 

Thanks for the post Yucca Patrol. Even though I have no reason to visit either Global or HA (Nashville is closest dealer and it's where I purchased) your detailed experience should not only help keep people from using Global's service dept. but keep them from purchasing from there as well.

Since BMW doesn't seem to care about keeping their dealers honest, the only option we have is to learn from others experiences and boycot s****y dealers

BTW, while I can't comment about Nashvilles service dept. (with 4K on the Mini there hasn't been any reason) but can attest to a great sales experience. I've done it a couple of time before but will have to give Kudos to Josh again. If anyone is purchasing a car from Mini Nashville, Josh is the salesman to call.