"your vechicle is at the port waiting for a shipping vessel". :D

 

Orm, where you headed to again?

 

Wahoo shoe: that's just what ASK-MINI is told me as the status of my Mini.

Have you noticed that sometimes the Automated voice gives out wrong information? For example just now when I called it told me my vehicle is in production and will be completed by 23rd. Then when I called again it told me, the same as Owner's Lounge, it is at the docks waiting for a carrier.

The next ships to bring it home are (Correct me if I am wrong.)

Manon (WW)
Southampton: 9/19/2010 Baltimore: 9/30/2010

Tamesis (WW)
Southampton: 9/20/2010 Baltimore: 9/29/2010 or

Rockies Highway (K-Line)
Southampton: 9/24/2010 Baltimore: 10/8/2010

Are there any others who are just waiting at the docks for a carrier?


Note: Behind the links I posted, if you click "Current Vessel's Track" under "Last Position Received" you can see the route the ship has taken (works at least for the WWs).

 

I meant which port you were headed for. I'm waiting for a boat to B'more too, glad to know Clubby will have a friend I didn't see the Manon on the schedule, you sure it's going to Baltimore? When I talked to a real person on 9/14 he had been finished early early that morning so she thought he'd be on the carrier down to the docks that evening at latest, so I should make one of those next boats. Being on KLine would crush me, ugh



update: Clubby's at the port waiting for a vessel, no shipping info available yet. I wonder if they'll put the shipping info on the automated line?

 

Hmm looks like they added in another ship!! Good news for us, seeming the boats will land one right after another so there's a nice chance for it to float across the pond by the end of the month.
Which dealer did you use?

 

Damn!!!!! Those are big boats. Wonder just how many cars that they can get on each one of them? They're still telling me that the JCW is to be scheduled, but no date has been set yet. That's 12 days after the order went in.

 

hemisedan: I guess a lot. http://www.kline.co.jp/biz/car/fleet_e.htm

wahoo shoe:

Vessel: MANON
Voyage: CA037-MAN

BREMERHAVEN, GERMANY 15/09/2010
ZEEBRUGGE, BELGIUM 18/09/2010
SOUTHAMPTON, UK 19/09/2010
HALIFAX, NS, CANADA 26/09/2010
NEW YORK, NY, USA 28/09/2010
BALTIMORE, MD, USA 30/09/2010

But I hope mine is on Tamesis, it gets to Baltimore a day sooner.

Edit: I do not know if all three of these (Manon, Tamesis, Rockies Highway) are going to be carrying Minis, these are just the next three big car carrier ships leaving Southampton to Baltimore.

 

Oooh good point. I'm sure at least one will picks ours up though!!

 

Can you just imagine how long it takes just to load one of these ship? Then, of course, to unload one of them at port?

 

They turn around in less than 24 hours. Way less in fact. Most go from one port to another in a day, and that includes travel time and all the customs crapola. I heard it's about 4-6 hours for all of the cars to be loaded on.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roll-on/roll-off

 

Yeah, they're pretty impressive. Another forum member, Oldsbear, pointed out an episode of Discovery Channel's Mighty Ships on the vessel Faust. It actually covers a voyage ferrying MINI's, BMW's, and Rolls Royces to NJ and you see the process of loading. Quite impressive! Basically lots of guys driving the cars onto the ship, which looks a lot like a multi-level parking structure on the inside. I know the ship bringing me my MINI loaded up on Wednesday in much less than 24 hours. Heck, it was so fast that the OL and ASK-MINI still list my car as waiting for transport, even though the VIN shows up WLL as on board and on its way!

 

Lol i've had my MINI since August 8th and OL still shows it as awaiting transport.

 

The automated phone has kept up, except for stuff over weekends. It seems like if you make progress over a weekend, the rest gets behind...I finished production Tuesday morning, but even that afternoon it was saying "you're in the paint shop!". It said body shop all weekend too, despite having had moved on already. However, when I called Tuesday, a real person said it was finished and waiting for a ride down to the dock, but then this morning it said it was already at the dock.
Online, it just switched from "Scheduled for Production" to "Awaiting Transport" today. It'll be interesting to see what the automated line says when I board a boat...I've heard the OL is useless after that because the VDC can be done in as little as two days (which seems to be the OL update time) and mine is less than a day truck ride.
Too bad my MA hasn't contacted me once through all of this, and the one time I tried to email I didn't hear anything until I emailed the SM

 

Hah, well, at least my expectations have been set appropriately now.

The hard part for me is finding a site that offers updates on my vessels voyage once they're beyond the range of AIS. Anyone have any suggestions? I'm curious, for instance, how they steer round the tropical storms!

 

There's a thread over in 1st Gear of some support week that went...batty....completely and totally. They were tracking the ships down to the hour and getting up at weird hours to watch them pull into port. They have a ton of links.
Frankly, once Clubby gets on the boat, I'm just gonna ride out the 9 days and try to forget about the voyage. These forums already suck down too much time

 

With my Lil Guy, he's still saying getting set for scheduling production. No date yet. I have on question for the On lounge: If you are going to have a site to track your Mini, they why not have it accurate and up to date? If not, why have it at all.

wahoo_shoe: Maria, my MA has been good about e-mailing, but won't use the telephone. I'm still a telephone guy, and would appreciate some voice to voice once in awhile. Even when I upgraded the seats, that was only done via e-mail. She was off today, so I haven't heard a thing, but it would be nice. I've now heard from other dealers that lost out, saying "come on in, we have something that you'll want to see". Olga and I are on vacation next week in PA, so I might just stop by the Mini dealer in West Chester. That's where my cousin lives and will be doing our escorting the historical sites, so why not look at the new 2011's in person.

 

It might sit like that for awhile. Have you tried talking to a real person at ASK-MINI? They may be able to give you a week#. If they don't, that's good news, that means you're scheduled for daily production and it'll start real soon

My MA is MIA

 

So has anyone confirmed the difference between MSRP & Invoice as well as what the actual Costco discount is?

I have been calling around and none of the nearby dealers are willing to give a firm answer, the best... er... only answer I get is "$1250 over invoice" (for a Clubman S) but they will not tell me what that number is???????? All they will tell me is "this one, with all of these options, is $_____" and so forth, none of the numbers seem to fit the online pricing being at or over them.

This is getting a bit frustrating to say the least

 

With MCS it is possible to negotiate a deal $1000 off MSRP or better, with JCW even more. There aren't many Costco Mini Dealers, there is one in Virginia and one in Hawaii and one in Texas, that I have heard of. But you can get better deals than the Costco, just takes some of your valuable time. Not all dealers are willing to negotiate. In Chicago area Patrick Mini and in Wisconsin International Autos are great. Others just seem to be too slow with replying to emails or making a deal. In Michigan they don't do deals like I mentioned.

Edit: With 2010s the invoice to MSRP difference was about $2050 with MCS. Found that out from a site like cars.com or similar. I cannot remember the exact price difference, but it is something like that. I guess it hasn't changed much for the 2011s. So go to cars.com, choose "Search for New Cars"-> "Mini" -> Click "Search New" -> click "Build Your Car" and then you see the difference for the 2010s.

 

Almost one year ago we traded our 06pw/w mcs in, in the automotive equivalent of throwing in the towel, and got an Element. We have a small child, the MINI was starting to get difficult for my petite wife with the car seat issues, and I transport bikes quite a bit, so we transitioned.

I still think the element is a great vehicle, but we finally accepted recently that we missed our MINI mojo a little too much. So we are, as of this afternoon, in the queue for an 11 clubman s. Oddly enough, it's the same build features as the old MINI down to the wheels. Just longer.

Awesome!

 

I got in touch with Costco, while they didn't give me any actual prices, they did get to dealers. I talked with Sterling Mini in Virginia, but there is also one in Oregon and I think in Massachesetts. None in the Midwest, which is where I was looking.

Patricks in Schaumburg: They will deal, as I have ordered, (see signature) 2011 JCW. They were willing to go $1200 off, or $900 plus throwing in the $600 in xenon headlights and adaptives. Too me, that was a good enough deal for me to sign and order the car. They told me that they were offering some free options, plus $1750 off invoice, probably headllights again. But, here in the upper Midwest, they're the only dealers that were wllling to do anything over what the factory authorized. Rather surprised me, especially when everyone in my area said that there were no deals on Minis.

I don't know much about International Mini in Milwaukee, I didn't try that dealer. Once I found, and had contact with Patrick Mini, I stopped.

 

There are deals out there. Based on my deal, dealer invoice appears to be about 9.2% (excluding destination charge of $700). So, I'm not too sure whether it's actually a straight 10% less MSRP for dealer invoice. If you are in the socal region, there are so many dealers here competing that you can get at least $1.5-2k off on an order 2011 MCS

 

cccplus: That's the deal with me here, too. In the Northern Illinois, Southern Wisconsin area, there about six dealers, so there is competition. Two dealers will deal, and I found one of them. My deal was, actually easy because of no trade in. I'm leasing a Miata MX-5, and the lease is up in November. I was just surprised at the way she, my MA came right out with offer, which in my case, or normal dealer, in Omaha, they wouldn't budge even for $500.

 

Hi guys,

I am new to this board and this is actually my first post. I can speak a bit about the Costco deal here in the Northwest States. There is a Mini Dealer in Seattle Washington who works through Costco. BTW there is also a participating Costco Mini dealer in Portland... Here's how it works:

1. Call Costco auto line and they give you a Authorization number and the name and number for the participating dealer. The Dealer also get this number and your information. (yes, you must be a Costco member)

2. When I called the Seattle dealer they gave me $500 off MSRP for a 2011 MCS, plus each month there is additional discount that changes month to month (usually around $200-$400, but they would not be specific unless I put money down on ordering a MCS). Costco then sends you a $50 gift cert. that can be used at that dealer for parts or service.

Since I live in Boise Idaho, the fuel to drive a truck/trailer to Seattle (did not want to drive a new mini in the winter that far) was just about what I would save (plus the hassle & time off work) using the Costco program. So... I called the Mini dealer in Utah (not on the Costco program) and they matched the initial $550 discount that Seattle was going to give me. Since most new Mini buyers are paying full MSRP, I felt pretty good about getting a 2011 MCS for $550 under MSRP. Also, Utah is less than half the distance for me to go get the car than going to Seattle over a big mountain pass with snow in the Fall/Winter!

I want to be clear that it was never my intent to play dealers against each other, but the Utah dealer jumped all over the $550 discount with the bad economy and lower mini sales to get my business. Perhaps if some of you have a situation like mine, you can mention to your dealer the Costco program. Hope this helps...

tvanhouten (new mini guy)
*MCS now in production to be completed on 9/23/10)

 

FYI, MSRP and Invoice are not the same thing. Invoice is what the dealer "pays" for the car. MSRP is what you pay. $1K off MSRP is NOT the same as $1k off invoice, biiiggg difference

I went the Costco route, worked out fine. My dealer was not budging past $750, what so ever. It was far easier to just get the $1k off without the hassle of negotiating, and from there I just kept negotiating freebies. If you go the Costco route, you really can't ask for much more of a monetary discount (you are getting a flat fee after all), but the freebies add up and it's a very cheap way for the dealer to give you "more money" off. While I wouldn't have necessarily bought the freebies (and you can get rubber mats at Autozone for $20) off on the side because they're rather expensive, it's still nice to have them.