Yhep, the Centaurus Leader was the K-Line ship that two of our three 05 MINI's came over to Port Hueneme on. In fact, if I look around, I believe that have photos of my MINI being unloaded from the ship that were taken by another NAM member.

Oh, and I also see that MINI is no longer offering the really cool video of your MINI rolling down the assembly line. I have a nice little video of one of our 05 MINI's being put together in the plant. Back then, it was a feature of the OL, but it's not there any longer from what I can see. Bummer.

EDIT: Just did a search and found it. Here's a link to a post I made a long time ago over on MINI2 that shows still shots taken from the production video I received. It was/is very cool!

http://www.mini2.com/forum/1240345-post9.html

 

I, too, have been under the impression that MINI was only using WW for West Coast shipping. I notice that the picture of the Centaurus Leader shows NYKLine, not K-Line. These appear to have different web sites - are they related?

Some posts here have reported East Coast MINIs being delivered on K-Line ships recently, and while I had seen that MINI had also used NYKLine, I have not seen anyone confirm delivery on a NYKLine ship recently. (I'm sure it could be there and I just missed it.)

It's kind of funny: the recent posts on NAM have given the impression that MINI uses WW for West Coast, and any of the lines for East Coast, while the BMW forums indicate that BMW has been using NYKLines for West Coast and WW for East Coast.

In any case, it sounds like BMW/Mini uses these three lines interchangeably all the time, and recent history may not be a strong predictor for near future shipments.

Given this, I suppose the best advice is: Once your MINI completes production, if it doesn't appear on a WW ship within a week or two, check with your MA to see if they can find out where your MINI is. They apparently have access to fairly detailed shipping info.

gl

 

What's interesting is that ASK Mini said that very thing (the MA having info) to me so I called the MA. He said he couldn't find the ship info and didn't even know about the WW site. He seems willing to help find the info, but I'm not sure he knows how to get it.

 

Yes, my bad, they are two different companies. NYK is Nippon, Yusen, Kaisha, while K-Line is Kawasawki, Kisen, Kaisha.

 

Thanks for finding this! I had really looked forward to seeing my MINI being built, and was disappointed that they no longer do this. Some friends ordered their MINI back in 2000 and got one of the first 200 in the US. The company sent out really cool stuff in the mail throughout the wait time. I guess as the little car gets bigger in the US, some of the fun goodies stop.

 

My car is STILL sitting at the port. It must be around 3 weeks now!!!

 

It ends up that my Mini was born on the 10th and the next day switched to Awaiting Transport. As of yesterday the 23rd it still said that on the OL site. It turns out that the car actually shipped on the 16th on K-Line. My MA finally got the info on the 21st. I emailed K-Line yesterday and they gave me the ETA of the boat to Charleston. Today (24th) the OL changed to En Route!

I also want to give a public thanks to greylight who has had some great info in various threads about shipping, boat lines, timing, etc. It all really helped.

 

Have you called your MA, if not, give a call and see what current info they may have. Three weeks at the port is longer than usual.

 

I doubt very seriously that it is still at the port. More likely, it was shipped via a non-trackable carrier and you just don't know where it's at. I'll bet that you'll get a call letting you know that your MINI has arrived before too much longer (since the passage to CA only takes 21 days and you've prpbably been at sea for near two weeks now).

 

I did call my dealer and they said it was still waiting transport!! I'm hoping it's on some ship crossing the Atlantic as I type this. He was able to give me an estimated arrival of mid Sept... so it better be on the ship.

 

My MINI has been compelted since 8/22 and awaiting transport since then. My MA just e-mailed me to say it's still at port waiting for a ship.

I found this quote on the WW site regarding their Southhampton Port, "All cargo must be received 4 working days prior to the vessel closing." Although it seems to me, based on some of these posts, that some cars didn't wait the 4 days.

I think there's a ship leaving tomorrow for the east coast, so hopefully most of us waiting will be on it! If not, I want a port cabin and dinner at the captain's table for my MINI's extra wait!

 

Hello, Everyone. My mini is on voyage from South Hampton to NY. According to WW site, it will be arrived NY port on 08/30. Dealer (NJ) said it may takes 7 days to ship to the dealer and takes about 3 more days to program my mini. Do you know what programming they do for 3 days?

 

Not sure why you are being told 3 days for progaming, usually dealers do the final detailing, PDI (pre delivery inspection) and any dealer installed opions you may have. Depending on how busy your deaer is, can take from one day to several.

 

Right. When my car came in, I think it had something like 17 truckmates. They obviously couldn't prep all 18 at once. The four days they took to prep the car and install the mud flaps seemed very reasonable.