Thinking of buying a new MINI? You may want to think again! I put a deposit down on my Cooper S a year ago and finally got the car on the 29th of July. I had to take the car back to the dealer the very next morning with a terrible screeching noise under the hood! After a brief inspection the dealer indicated that the car had a faulty "pulley" and it would need to be ordered from Germany. After waiting for 4 days with no update it was explained to me that my car actually needed a new supercharger. Three more days go by and I was told that replacing the blower did not fix the problem and the dealership was unsure of what the problem was! It has now been two weeks, I have driven my new car 1 time and have no idea when I will get the car back! I am strongly considering rejecting the car back to BMW USA and buying something different. This is the worst car experience I have ever had! :???:

 

How sad!. Reject the lemon, but you'll like the next MINI. Stuff happens. Ron.

 

Unfortunately, it's the price to pay for being first in line. I bought the first '99 Jetta (the new year of the latest style) in the Pacific Northwest and things were pretty bad. A year and a half later I talked VW into buying it back. They wouldn't call it a Lemon Law issue, but took it back straight away. It's too bad to hear that with your Mini. There are bound to be problems, but hopefully they'll get them straightened out. I'm glad to still be waiting, but my numbers up soon and we'll see how it goes.

Good luck in sorting out the problem. I wouldn't give up after only a couple of weeks, but would keep track of times and dates. Maybe, you can talk BMW into getting you a 2003. Some sort of compromise.

Best regards,

Jason

 

I've never heard of any car manufactorer in history ever putting out 100% defect free cars. There are always bound to be a few complete and udder lemons. You just got extremely unlucky.

I don't think this reflects upon MINI at all... as if you go to ANY car message board you will find folks with complete lemons. People make cars and people make mistakes.

Don't give up yet... your next MINI is bound to be flawless.

 

Sorry about this, but it's the first time I've seen this problem reported. I understand that as the one person this has happened to it's kind of a downer, but I wouldn't paint the entire MINI brand with such a wide brush. Seems like a very isolated problem.

 

I've gotten 5500 trouble free miles on my MINI and my only regret is that I didnt get one sooner. Sorry you got a lemon, but it happens to the best of brands.

 

I agree with everything that have been said here so far. I have yet to see a manufacturer that puts out 100% defect free cars. I symphatize with the original poster about his experience with the "terminal" problems in his new MCS, but this does not mean that every single MINI is fatally flawed from the get go, they just aren't.
To me this is a problem caused by either a missed quality check at the factory (Doubtful), car was probably damaged during transport (And no one is disclosing this) or the distribution center failed to properly perform a quality check that could have revealed right away a serious problem developing in the supercharger componentry or something was done wrong while the car was there.

Bottom line: This car should have never ever be approved to leave the distribution center.

The distribution center acts as the last "Safety quality net" before the cars are sent to the dealers and ultimately placed on customer's hands.

This is an operation problem for BMW/MINI to worry about (Not the customer), identify the source of the failure and put close tabs at all quality check points so cars with parts or manufacturing defects don't fall thru the cracks again and end up in the hands of disgruntled (For a good reason) customers.

This whole ordeal is indeed a hiccup on MINI's part and I am sure that they will do the right thing for you and swap you the car with a brand spanking new MCS with a working supercharger!

Don't lose the faith, be polite calm but firm and I am sure MINI will ensure your satisfaction 100%. Why settle for a mundane appliance when you can own the car you really want? Food for taught!

 

Sorry to hear that this happened to you......but clearly this is not a typical problem...don't let it ruin how you originally felt about the Mini; I mean clearly you liked it and wanted it badly enough to wait that long. This site is full of people that completely adore their cars, including myself....there must be some compromise they can offer you. Don't give up yet! :smile:

 

Just curious as to which dealer you went to, and who your salesperson was.

 

Well, after reading that, I regard that as a worst case scenario... Thats the worst problem I've seen anyone write, and I've been here for a while, along with Mini2... My cooper s has a few thousand on it, and it's been flawless!

 

Well I have gotten the car back and everything is now ok. The service manager told me that it was a design defect in the blower that caused the problem. As it was explained to me, the supercharger had a teflon bushing in it that melted at engine temp. Thus I drove the car one night and it failed. I am not sure how much stock I put in this answer due to the fact i have not heard of it happening on any other MCS's. However I will have to say, I truly love the car and am glad it all worked out.

 

BTW The car was purchased from Matt at Tate MINI of Annapolis.

 

zerofail writes:

>>Well I have gotten the car back and everything is now ok. The service manager told me that it was a design defect in the blower that caused the problem. As it was explained to me, the supercharger had a teflon bushing in it that melted at engine temp. Thus I drove the car one night and it failed. I am not sure how much stock I put in this answer due to the fact i have not heard of it happening on any other MCS's. However I will have to say, I truly love the car and am glad it all worked out.<<




Cheers!
Clover

 

Damn, I picked up my car July 29th chili red Cooper S. I only have 500 miles on the car. Well Yesterday I experienced the same thing. High pitched wailing from under the hood. It sounded like it was coming from the belts so I thought I would spray some silicone on the belts to quiet them down. No such luck. Sounds like the dreaded pulley problem.

Oh by the way did I tell you how my Indi Blue Cooper shifter broke while driving on the highway before the 4th of July weekend. 12 days later the car was fixed. I'm glad to see that BMW has reproduced the typical British unreliability. Good thing I'm a british car nut. So I've had plenty of experience with British cars breaking down. Hell it even happens to my Mercedes. Next time I'll buy Japanese (just kidding)


Oy Veah.

Scott