after reading this thread I checked mine the other day and it appears to me that it is starting to sag/melt a little in the center top area. Has anyone had luck with the dealer swaping out for the carbon fiber one? I also have a clear bra installed on the the front of my MINI including the scoop. It wasnt installed by the dealer but do you think they would cover that being replaced as well?

 

like i said, my dealer did NOT swap mine for carbon fiber but then again we have also established the fact that my sa was a total ***** so i dont know about yours...try it...where are you located?

also, calling mini and complaining....does anyone have any success with this? i mean honestly where is that gonna get me...if its only gonna get me upset and irritated but back at the stage iim at than whats the point? this is the dealer i have to work with and im gonna go back to this guy...unless the stars align, he gets on his knees, apologizes for his actions and gives my carbon fiber hood scoop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lollllll fat chance.

 

isn't to get resolution with your particular problem, but more to give Mini USA some leverage in getting the dealership to step up a bit in the quality of service they give. I'm sure there are some incentives they can get for wonderful customer service, and there are franchise negotiations at contract time and the like. Anyway, it just takes a bit of your time in an effort to make it better for those that follow in your footsteps. Think of it as taking one for the team.

Phxsteele, no way will they cover your clearbra treatement of the scoop. Heck, they may even claim that it happened BECAUSE of the treatment! Just hope you don't have the same SA as fronjoni does!

But for any of you that take your car in for this, it would probably serve you well to print out some of the examples from here and Mini2, and point out the evolution in both the scoop baffle holes as well as the ECU programming of the radiator fan, for those SAs who've "never heard of it before"!

Matt

 

yeah i can take one for the team and call

 

yeah there are some seriouse A.H.

those in the Maryland/washington area... if this is happening to you, just go bmw of towson and ask to see the manager instead of having some idiot say that the sun melted it...

 

I took mine in for a hoodscoop swap last week. They agreed after they were sure i didn't have an aftermarket downpipe or removed the heat shield or anything like that. I did try and get the carbon fiber scoop, but to no avail. Oh well. I called MINIUSA for something unrelated to this, but did bring it up and asked what their plan of action was for all these hoodscoops that continue to melt. He gave me a mildly irritating answer of "the company will not do a recall or anything of the nature until the proportion of warped hoodscoops increases, as of now, its not an overwhelming problem"

 

thats fine, let them not do a recall...but at least have the s.a.'s get on our side, instead of the dealerships side and maybe just maybe have them think outside of their small little boxes and say hey, this scoop is plastic, its prolly gonna melt again, lets be smart about this and keep the customer happy by supplying cf scoops....so when mini rep asks hey, why have you given out so many cf scoops under warranty, they can simply reply, cuz they plastic ones that you are supplying keep melting and the customers are staying very unhappy..instead of absorbing the problem, they are repelling it back to the customer....so ****in annoying

 

I guess we can join in on the melted hood scoop issue too.... Hubby just informed me that after sitting in traffic for over an hour yesterday on his way to MTTS in LA (I couldn't go because I have to work), that we now have a nicely melted scoop. He's hoping to find a MINIUSA rep while there to show them.....

Donna

 

wow... just called bmw after waiting 10 days for a call... never ordered my scoop.

wat asses

 

yeah its been almost ten days and still no call from mini....

 

they said it is "on its way over" but parts said that there was never any parts that was ever ordered in the first place...

"expect it to arrive on wednesday" he says.... i guess i have more waiting to do

 

so i was hand washing my mini the other day and when i ran my fingers over my hood scoop i felt the drives side a little raised. Definatly looks like it's going in the melted direction. Is anyone else having this problem? If it does "melt" anymore i will be demanding a CF scoop just becasue that shouldn't happen on a car a month old.

 

I don't understand how they didn't notice this during testing

Maybe they only tested them during winter months or something. haha

 

after 3 weeks of no call....i decided to give the sa a call and he said the scoop is at the painters and should be ready this week...im dropping the car off on friday for the weekend so can perform the various checks he wants to perform...i'm reallllly curious to see what he's going to say when he comes to the conclusion that there really is no solution...im just hoping that he doesnt turn around and try to get me to change different parts cuz he thinks itll make a difference...is there anyway you can say no?

 

Is this an issue at all with the chrome scoop?
I don't know what the base material for the chrome scoop is... but I would assume it's the same as the carbon fiber scoop, as I doubt that's a solid piece of carbon fiber (wouldn't be surprised if it's just patterned to look like cf).

 

Actually, it's probably because they do most of their (longer-term at least) testing in Oxford, England where the average temperature in August doesn't get above 75 degrees!

 

just got mine replaced free of charge. once it starts to melt again, im going straight back to that saammee person and see what kinda of deal he can give me for a carbon fiber one... worse comes worse, ill have them replace it as many times required and then ill buy a cf one for myself and have a nearly brand new lb hoodscoop

 

It took me a month from the time they ordered my scoop to the time that they installed it. Two weeks later I had to do a return visit to have the scoop re-installed (correctly this time).

 

The chrome scoop is coated plastic (like the painted one). The CF scoop is made from CF (hence the $300 price tag).

 

I did a completely unscientific, subjective visual survey of the R56s at MITM last week, totally independent of build date, existing scoop mods, and the like, so take it for what it's worth. Conservatively, I would say that at least 25% of the R56 "S" MINIs in attendance were showing evidence of scoop melting in varying stages of progression. This included at least one that had a vented scoop grill.

It was also evident that there were many MINI owners there who were still completely unaware of the issue.

 

Interesting...

That's something I was wondering... the ACTUAL occurrence rate of the melting. I bet a lot of people don't even know it's happening yet... or may not ever for that matter.

 

I've only had my Mini for 3 weeks (~1500 miles) and I can already see a slight dip. I wouldn't have noticed it if I wasn't looking for it, but after reading about the issue I checked.

 

I Noticed mine about a month ago, but didn't find this thread until now. Mine's pretty baddly warped. Funny since have a habbit of opening my hood when I park in my garage, not because of this issue, but so my cat won't sit on my hood. It apparently didn't help though.

 

I sure hope that they fix this problem for the 2009 models. I was thinking of having a chrome scoop installed, but now that I read that it's made of plastic, I may just be wasting my money.

 

I knew about this issue not long after getting my R56, which has a fully closed scoop, so I kept a close eye on on it. I also purchased a digital IR thermometer to measure the temperature of the scoop. After 10 months I still had no signs of deformation. My biggest concern was when I return home from work I park the car in my garage, which can become quite hot in the summer and has almost no airflow. After shutting the car down, the temperature on the hottest part of the scoop would increase over the next 10-20 minutes to around 200 degrees. While this is lower than what others have measured (some have hit over 230), I still figured it was just a matter of time before I would see a 'dip'. I installed the JCW carbon fiber scoop last month.

I do find it odd that people are buying new R56 S models with semi-open scoops and experiencing problems very quickly, and yet others with fully closed scoops haven't had any issues. Is there more than one plant manufacturing the scoops for MINI/BMW, with perhaps a slightly different polyurethane recipe? Do some turbos run slightly hotter than others, while still remaining within normal tolerance? Does it relate more to driving style?