It would be great to get all your feed back on the best dealer (s) to work with in the LA area for

1. Test drives and generally scoping out the minis, their options and functionality

2. Sales and Presale experience.


3. After sale support and service satisfaction.



Hope this post is in the right forum.


Thanks for such a great forum. I have been lurking for a number of months.

 

South Bay BMW in Torrance!

Did not get my car there, but I get it serviced there every now and then and they always have treated me wonderful. I have gone on one test drive there, and the sales staff was very nice.

They are also very mod friendly...if you plan on modding your car at all.

 

I got mine at South Bay in Torrance. Very happy with sales and service. The guys there are MINI heads. I would recommend them to anyone.

I did have one problem during a service but I'm not going to hold it against them just yet. I got a nail in my run-flat but I can't prove it was during service.

 

I found South Bay great for test drives but on both occasions, the MAs that helped me knew next to nothing about the car. One of them was gone within two weeks of my testdrive; the other lobbed a call back to me to see if I had decided to order.

I bought my car at Bob Smith in Calabasas. Kirsten was my MA and she was great. Because I knew exactly what I wanted to order, I didn't ask much of her besides placing the order properly and promptly, being very responsive in follow up emails, and just being really friendly and courteous, all of which she was. I placed my order on 1/22 and picked it up on 3/2.

 

BEST SERVICE DEPARTMENT / ALWAYS SELL @ STICKER

 

+1 for South Bay. I had a great experience from Amanda (don't-call-me-Victoria ) White. Very responsive, knowledgeable, no hassle, no pressure. I even got a few extras thrown in and a few bucks off MSRP. Also, SB MINI seems to get production numbers more quickly so it keeps your waiting for your car to a MINImum.

I wish I could say the same for Universal and Bob Smith because they are 30 miles closer to me but it was well worth the longer drive to go to SB.

 

Hey go Black and Gold! Huge steeler fan here. If we ever meet a an even lets swap stories.

Check out Amanda at South Bay. She is awesome and a member of Southern California Mini Maniacs www.clubscmm.com

-Michael

 

oops, didnt see your last post. Glad you hooked up with Amanda. See you at a Mini event! Do you ever get to a "steelers" bar like Sharky's?

 

+1! I've purchased two MINIs from Long Beach MINI. Very enjoyable experiences and once they got the service separated from the BMW side, it's been quite good.

LB MINI is the original MSRP-only dealership in SoCal.

 

I purchased mine from LB MINI also. It was a very pleasurable experience. Unfortunately, I live a little to far away to use them for service.

 

Another +1 for South Bay MINI
Another +1 for Amanda @ South Bay MINI

When I was looking for my MINI she was the most courteous and professional MA. She really took her time out to explain things to us (except the gas cap ).
She's the Greatest!!!

-MIKEY

 

Sounds great!!! I would love to go to an event soon. I'll check out the club calendar.

I haven't made it to a Steelers Bar yet but plan to this season. There's a bowling alley/bar up here that I am going to check out. Where is Sharkey's located? PM me so we don't hijack this thread any longer.

 

Cool. We bought the same basic car from the same person! When did you get yours?

 

power to south bay!

universal is a JOKE

 

Thanks to all of you that responded. I wonder if a dealer is better than others when it comes to pre sales test drive and demos. I might be considering the coop or the clubby. Based on the overwhelming response, I think Southbay it is.

 

universal mini in universal city and/or bob smith

 

Universal City Mini has the worst service department of any dealership I've ever been to hands down (regardless of auto brand).

I had a defective cylinder head (independently verified) and they tried to blame the problems the car was having on me. This was after I had brought it into them twice before and they sent me home, not being able to "find the problem." They also wouldn't even continue to diagnose the car unless I ponied up 3k of my own money for the teardown (keep in mind the car is still under warranty).

I happily paid $120 out of pocket to have the car towed to Nick Alexander on recommendation from a fellow NAM'er (thank Mark!) and they promptly fixed the car and verified that it was a defective part that caused the problem.

So in short - stay away from Universal City Mini.
Nick Alexander on the other hand, gets the highest praise from me that I can offer. :0)

 

I'd reccomend South Bay for the Mini... Bob Smith is great if you're buying a BMW though...

I bought a few bmw's from bob smith..
and a mini from them... buying the mini was a little more of a pain than I woulda prefered... but it was mostly the sales guy I didn't care for

 

[quote=rameshseth;2118178]It would be great to get all your feed back on the best dealer (s) to work with in the LA area for

1. Test drives and generally scoping out the minis, their options and functionality

2. Sales and Presale experience.


3. After sale support and service satisfaction.



Hope this post is in the right forum.


Alexander Mini is very good in terms of sales (I got my car 1K off MSRP) . While Bob Smith in Calabasas is OK in terms of service clearly stay away from their sales dept. They will not even negotiate on that "mark up" they have, really bad sales people. And I agree the service dept. at Universal City Mini didn't impress me at all.

 

I bought my MINI from South Bay MINI. Amanda was my MA. She was great to deal with before, during and after my purchase. No hassles what so ever.

I would stay away from Bob Smith, had two not so good experiences with the sales guy there. I'm not sure what his name is, but he seems to be there 24/7. I was pretty dissappointed since Bob Smith is the closest dealer to me, by about 30 miles. I did visit the service department there recently and that didn't go very smoothly either. I will say that Hilary in service was very accommodating and did her best to remedy the situation.

My MINI purchase at South Bay was by far the best car buying experience I've ever had.

 

granted universal is bad(im all for bob smith because of experience with their customer service, thanks nicole) but when i bought my 02 off the lot at universal the sales person had the utmost courtesy of any salesman ive ever delt with. Not only did he custom order the color for me(before indie blue was sold on the mcs) but he also took 6,000 off the sticker price because the low jack wouldnt work in my area(i live in santa barbara and we dont have a low jack reception tower.....or for that fact even a v-cast tower(screw you verizon))

 

Bob Smith MINI - we went in pretty much knowing what we wanted and had a good experience with the sales dept. They were not pushy and made sure all our questions were answered.

As with JoshK, we also had a defective cylinder head (at only 2K miles) and they replaced it without incident and let us pick out a BMW loaner until our MINI was ready. It took a little while to fix the MIN, but they kept us informed throughout the service and our sales person also called to make sure everything was being taken care of.

 

+1 for South Bay Mini. My MA is Freddie Lewis. He's very friendly. Didn't pressure my wife and I with purchasing the vehicle at all. Answered every question that we had for him. He's very knowledgeable and a MINI owner himself. While my MINI is still on order I correspond with him via email and he responds right away.

 

yea, thats what is good about bob smith, they take very good care of you and they called me atleast twice a day to keep me informed when my front strut assembly was being reparied. I also had a defective clutch, brake sensors and steering wheel when i took it in one time os they replaced all that pluss my pads and rotors all for free ....i did not pay one cent out of my pocket for the replacments. but i also have to say they get a little swamped and can take a while to get your car serviced(oil change took 3 days)

 

+1 on South Bay and +1 on Amanda

Great buying experience, service ok so far (only been in once), but I hear they hired Brian White from Fireballed Racing as a Mini Tech which will only make things even better.