Hi everyone.
Took my 13 Cooper S in for service as I had a hum coming from the front passenger side tire. Car has 11,000 km on it. Mini is saying that the car needs an alignment and as a result, there is feathering on the tires, causing the hum. They said I likely hit a pot hole and threw the alignment out.
I'm paying the $139 for an alignment and tire rotation, but now I'm worried that every time I hit a bump I'm going to end up with the same problem. The dealer said an alignment once a year should eliminate this problem, but I've only had the car for six months and they're saying the tires are already damaged.
Any thoughts?

 

fact of owning a car...crap happens..just like potholes...
Giving your car a good look....
kinda like a pilot doing a preflight or a trucker doing a pretrip where you look at your tires, oil, etc can help you see changes..so you can get stuff fixed BEFORE it causes an issue...maybe when gassing up...once a week or so..touch your tires..check your oil and coolant...looks for leaks....
a tire with odd wear can often be rotated to another wheel....an alighment done..and the tire MAY start to wear more evenly....BUT ONCE an odd wear pattern starts...you can never really UNWEAR it..but you can get it to srart wearing evenly across the tire...so you might have lost lots of tire life since you did not catch it...when one PART of the tire is too this to be legal..it is JUNK....
I have seen a few folks with MINI's that have the WIRES (cords) sticking out if their tires..but they somehow feel safe cause they look at the OTHER EDGE OF THE TIRE and see legal tread! Amazes me....

 

Do you have run-flat tires? If so, more of the impact from that pothole will get transferred to the suspension than with regular tires. Run-flats don't absorb anything.

 

My guess & it is just a guess is that your alignment was never right from the day you picked up your MINI. It took a while to feather those tires, that doesn't happen overnight. I don't buy the dealer's you hit a pothole & ruined the alignment. Yes it can happen, but not as often as people think.

Glad you are getting it fixed.

 

True. When I picked up my MINI in 2003, one of the first things I did was check the alignment,
and the fronts had a little over 3/16 inch of toe in. Fortunately, that was an easy curb-side fix.

 

It takes time for a tire to show the effect of a misalignment. If the car only has 11,000 km (6,800 mi), it's quite possible that it was already misaligned since the beginning.

 

Avoid all potholes. It takes concentration but, seriously don't hit them if you can avoid it.

 

Thanks everyone for the feedback. That's my concern as well. I have no issue with paying to maintain my vehicle, but I do have an issue with having to pay for a problem that was caused by my vehicle being delivered without a proper alignment.