I want to avoid engine problems hence my post.

The car has 27k miles and 24 months left on the MINI warranty. Even so I normally take my cars to independent shops for routine maintenance.

Question 1 - I live in San Francisco and the local BMW Dealership also has the MINI of San Francisco franchise. Anyone have experience with MINI of San Francisco's service dept?

I have had some negative experiences with my BMW 740i with them. Took two trips for them to fix a fuel line leak in that was leaking gas on to a hot manifold! For something that serious you would think they would get it right. Maybe they did not even look at the car the first time.

I also told them NOT to wash my flawless black car. They did.

The free road service was great when the car had to be towed in because my battery was dead. I was busy and let them talk me into towing it rather than my buying a battery and dropping it in. They said they needed to check the whole car to make sure it was not something electrical. I told them it was because I don't drive much and I think the alarm drained the battery since I had not driven the car in two months. Meh... they found nothing wrong and a new battery was $478 Don't think they checked anything out. That was just sales talk by the ramp guy.

2. Anyone take their MINI to an independent garage in San Francisco? One that knows what they are doing on a MINI? I am going to call Hans Art, a garage that is the BEST I have ever been to, ever, to see if he works on the MINI [versus mine being the designated "how do we do this" training machine.] But absent that, any tips on where you take your MINI, great.

 

I can say the parts department is great (I tend to do EVERYTHING I can on my vehicle before I'd consider letting someone else, only because there's enough shady service shops out there, and a higher number of those are inside a genuine dealer) but have no personal experience with Mini/BMW SF. I've heard mixed stories, though mostly negative experiences with the Mini service department, which leads me to believe that outside of the Service Writer, they're the same shop.