Monday cars and Friday cars have more problems then others, if tou know the date it finished, post it and problems you had....


My car was a Wednesday car and no issues so far

 

Actually there is some truth to the old saying regarding Monday and Friday cars built.Oddly both of my last 2 cars(Ford's) happened to be built on a Friday that had several problems with them but corrected under warranty.Also don't forget to add the day before and after a holiday too.

Scrappy's Production date:2/27/08 Wednesday.

Problems: Yes on my 5th right now.

To be trouble free: Priceless

 

love to know others

 

Sorry, but I don't get the purpose of this thread. The Mini production occurs over many days. So which day of production are you worried about?

 

Mondays and Fridays as the saying goes......

 

Friday afternoon car

Meaning
A faulty or sub-standard car. More widely, any poor effort.
Origin
This is a British phrase and alludes to the belief that car workers lose interest toward the end of the week and make cars which are below standard. The first reference I can find to it is in the Usenet group 'net.auto', from August 18th 1983 ( at 5:54 pm if you want to be precise):

 

No car is built in one day. So matter when your car was built some of it was probably assembled on Monday or Friday or both. And BTW MINIs are built Monday thru Saturday. In fact they are at capacity, so who knows maybe they are even doing some production on Sundays.

Another thing to keep in mind is MINI is an assembly facility. I don't know if they build anything from scratch at the factory. Most of the parts are built at another site or bought from vendors, shipped to the factory where the car is assembled. If you had an oil leak, it would not matter if your car was assembled on Monday or Friday as the engine was assembled at the BMW 4 cylinder plant in Hams Hall England and then shipped to the MINI factory.

PS: there is someone on MINI2 that works at the factory. You could probably find out more about production there.

 

^^DanF you can access the production date through the OBC what that means is the date it was finished (born on),slapped on the boot and ready for shipping to the dealerships.

 

I know when mine was built, I just don't see it being relevant to any problems that may occur.

 

I have to disagree with Dan about a car taking several days to complete. I toured the corvette plant and they build about 12 cars per day (or whatever the exact number is)

Point is, regardless if it did take them longer than a day, if the last day they finished the car was on a Friday, it wouldn't surprise me that it potentially has more problems than those that weren't finished on a Friday.

The reason I say this is I went to college in Youngstown, OH. (armpit of the North)

Anyway, Lordstown was a GM plant about 40 minutes away. Many of my friends worked there and would tell me stories how on a friday they would do silly things like tie a nut to a string and hang it from the interior door panel.

Of course, I'm not comparing GM's quality to Mini's (not to mention that was the early 80's) but I'm sure employees tendency to slack increases as the weekend approaches.

God I hope my car was built on Wednesday...lol.

Mark

 

The Oxford plant is running three shifts a day, seven days a week. At least, it was in 2004 and 2006, and I doubt they've scaled back.

As such, there's no traditional "weekend", and Mondays/Fridays don't have the same significance as they would in a factory that's closed on Saturdays and Sundays.

For every Oxford worker that has Saturday and Sunday off, there's probably another that has Wednesday and Thursday off (that is, if they even get two days off a week, much less two *consecutive* days).

 

Mine was on the first station then they had the strike.... but finished on a Wednesday

I also know many that think that way , I am far from alone:(

 

Good point Scott, the shifts run so constant that there really isn't a Monday or Friday, it's continuous.

Mark

 

For what it's worth, you might get more responses posting in the General MINI Talk forum.

 

The exact time to assemble each car in a manufacturing plant ranges between 27 and 36 hours depending on the company. Of course one car is not being built at a time and there are time lapses between steps of assembly.

We all know from looking at the OL info from MINI when our car went into production, when it was at the paint shop etc. I believe the entire process for my car was 4 days. So obviously they were not working on my car for every minute for 4 days. What I am saying though is the parts that break are not even built at the assembly plant. For instance, my catalytic converter was replaced about a month ago. I didn't suspect that problem may of been caused because the car may of been built on a monday or a friday because the converter is a vendor part. It's not even made by MINI. It is just attached to the car at the assembly plant.

 

Ah, but that's the miracle of assembly-line production - Once all of the dozens of stages in the production pipeline are full, you can crank out 650 cars/day like the Oxford plant's doing, even though each individual car spends several days "in the pipeline".

To use your example, just because the plant was producing a new Corvette every two hours (on average), that doesn't mean that it only took two hours to make a Corvette from scratch. Each car probably spent longer than that just being prepped for paint, painted and sitting in the curing booth.

 

Yeah it is more typical of modern production to produce a car in the 1 day range from start of assembly the end. Painting is usually the longest cycle in this time and due to the two different paint colors along with a lot of customization it wouldnt be surprising if the MINI's are way on the long side of normal production time. Mr Toyoda would not approve

 

Good point guys, you both bring up some valid points I wasn't thinking about. I forget that the motor was built already or the interior was put together.... just because it took "2 hours" to "assemble" the already built parts, doesn't mean the entire car was done in a day.

Thanks,

Mark

 

I've done the factory tour. It starts off in the "body in white" shop where robots put the metal together. I doubt the robots care about the day of the week. Then it goes into the paint shop, which I think is quite automated (you don't see the paint shop on the tour). Then its on to final assembly which is where you get the workers putting things together, and that only takes a few hours. The born on date is telling you when the majority of the human input was.

 

My car started production on a Monday and was "born on" the following Saturday. I had heard the same thing about Mondays and Fridays and I was a bit concerned.

But . . .

A year later things are great! I've only been to the dealer for minor things:

1. warped plastic ring around my gas cap - replaced

2. rattle in my sunroof shades - replaced

3. a dead battery which I'm pretty sure was my fault, but that they replaced gratis.

So don't worry.

 

Sounds like someone's got a case of the Mondays.

 

I doubt that this thread would even be here if more folks watched MINI USA's online video that shows all stages of production, how long it takes to make a MINI, plant operating hours (24x7), etc. It's all there, including pop ups and drop downs that give all sorts of related facts.

Hey, that's how I've spent 10 hours a day since I ordered my MINI! (It's scheduled for final assembly today).

 

That's a really funny story.

Like the funny story a teacher of mine told me her brother
worked at one of the "big three but cant say which one"
and his first job was to design a wheel bearing that would
break at 50k miles.

ha ha soooooo funny.
(not)

I guess those people thought they had a monopoly, eh.

260,000 miles on my crx wheel bearings and going strong!

 

My car was finished on a Friday. It came with a few minor things. Only the paint issue could have been some thing at the factory. Everything else was en route or at my dealer.

Scratch on piano black on drivers door (done by dealer; piece replaced by dealer).
Scratch on rear valence below bumper; black piece (done by dealer, piece replaced by dealer).
Scratch on drivers door (done in shipping; fixed at port)
Loose dash panel below steering wheel (done by port when installing driving lights; fixed by dealer)

And probably the only issue that was from the factory, paint problem on front bumper. Repaired by paint shop near my dealer on Mini's dime.

So really no problems.

But how many workers actually work M-F work week? I doubt the Sat/Sun workers only work those 2 days.

I think the Friday/Monday car thing is a myth. I work the same, M/F as I do any other day.

 

yea , but still curious :::