Just thought I would post an update on the situation. Dropped my coupe off yesterday morning. The service department ran diags on it again, same MAF fault error as before. They ran the smoke test again only this time they said they found a loose clap on a hose. Seems as though the loose hose was causing a leak and was tripping the MAF sensor. We shall see if this was the culprit. I will give them the benefit of the doubt. Hopefully they got it right this time. Fingers crossed.

I wanted to thank everybody for their input in this matter. I posted right after I got home so I was still a little upset at seeing the CEL. Must remember to breath deep before posting anything to the Interwebz.... Hope everybody is enjoying their MINIs and wish everybody a Happy Thanksgiving..... CHEERS.

 

Well, may have spoke too soon about being fix. Stopped at the store on the way home. Car was running fine, pulled into the gas station. Filled up the tank for for the first time. Go to start the car, it just cranks, doesn't turn over. Pull the key out, insert the key, same thing. Had to push the gas pedal and rev the engine to get the car out of the gas stall. Was afraid the car was going to die on the way home. Will probably be heading back to the service department on Monday. Three trips to service in the first two weeks. Called my MA and told him I have no confidence in my brand new $35K car. Hate to over react but I shouldn't have to worry about taking my car for a drive.

 

Geez....sorry about your bad luck so far Tim. I'd be upset too. Is there any chance that the gas cap wasn't put on all the way or incorrectly? I know it's a stretch but maybe? Hopefully all the bugs are getting worked out in the first weeks of ownership and will end soon.

 

I have a feeling you have a Lemon...

Such a low chance but it is terrible to see that you got one tcassa. You were so excited for this car :(

I hope they can correct this for you and get you squared away. :(

 

A Lemon or a bad dealer. Hate to hear of your problems. I'd be pissed too. Mine is a year old this week. Had one minor problem with a high speed vibration fixed by replacing two tyres and a minor oil leak. Both times dealer kept car until they knew it was fixed and gave me a nice demo to drive.

 

And the saga continues........ So I started the car several times this weekend without incidence. Having worked in IT for 20 years, I have seen anomallies that occur once and never present themselves again. So I am ready to write the idle issue off and see what happens. No sense taking it to the service department if the issue hasn't reoccurred. Car starts normally and I am driving into work and drinking my coffee. Clance over and almost spit my coffee over the dash, CEL..... NOOOOO. Didn't even bother scheduling an appointment with service. I just drove it to the dealer, dropped it off and told them to fix it. I will be calling my MA this morning and telling him that enough is enough. This has gone beyond a minor inconvenience. In less than one weeks time, I have had to drop my coupe off on Tues, Thurs, and again today. That is just not right and I don't know what the dealership can do to make it right at this point. I have absolutely 0% confidence in my brand new car. I understand the CEL isn't a serious failure and that it isn't "limp" mode but I shouldn't have to worry about a brand new car as much as I have with this one. Oh well, guess I will be without my car for a couple of days this time because I told the dealership to get it right this time and don't just half-*** it. Off to call my MA to keep him in the loop and let him know I am not a happy motorer.

 

I feel for you. It is horrible to have a new car living in the dealership getting fixed every other day. I would be pissed off too. I hope it works out and you can be confident in your car.

 

tcassa -

Time to pull out the Utah Lemon Law. It will guarantee you a resolution which means a new car and a loaner until you get it.

 

I am on the cusp of contacting somebody concerning possible action concerning this car. I have sent an email to miniusa. All I get from the dealer is "We will get it taken care of". They have offered me a loaner, but I don't drive a stick. I know they are trying to get it fixed but at some point you have to stop with the pleasantries and start looking for an exit strategy. The damage to my confidence and goodwill has been done.

 

So ask for an automatic. I'm sure they will make that accommodation.
Tell em to keep the car until it's fixed. Which means test drive it extensively and don't call me until it's done.

In the meantime drive the loaner and hopefully it will snow when your in the loaner and save some wear and tear on your Coupe.

 

Wow only a stick?

That is ridiculous.

Yep time to get corporate involved. I'd be storming up and down on them as well. It is time for them to find an exit strategy and to get you into a new Coupe.

 

tcassa I think you should take the loaner that is a stick. It gives you the chance to learn a stick on transmission that you don't have to worry about. 3 days from now you will be impressed just how easy and fun a stick is when you don't care about damaging the transmission.
On the serious side, you should take this up with Mini USA and get out of that particular coupe. I don't know the lemon laws in your area but you must think about looking into that area for your exit strategy.

 

Ridiculous they don't have an automatic loaner. I expect most dealers would not even have a stick for loan. Anyway, it seems you have hit a perfect storm of bulshlit. Buggy car, crap service department, and employees of a mini dealer that obviously don't understand the importance of customer satisfaction. If I was MINI USA I would be offering you something to salvage the relationship as well as sending someone to personally find out what happened at the dealer that this was not resolved. This is not OK, and you should have been pampered until the car was fixed.

Side thought, couldn't the MAF sensor cause problems with the car starting? The MAF controls air/fuel ratio, right?

In any case, I wish you the best of luck and I hope they give you a JCW for your trouble.

 

What is the best way to contact the corporate office? I sent an email from the miniusa website but I don't know if they review those and will escalate the email.

 

Try 866-ASK-MINI and get a live person.

 

The only thing that's malfunctioned on the car was the difficult start at the gas station. The other episodes were the CEL coming on, and the car ran fine but threw a code. The difficult start sure sounds like a fuel pump problem to me. I had one of those go out, and they fixed it and no problems in years. Just my .02.

 

Hope this matter gets resolved. I'd be mad as hell in your position! Hopefully, MINI will get this worked out to your satisfaction!

 

Well tonight in my new 2012 with 450 miles on it, I get in it and start it...and guess what showed up...the yellow engine light!!!! I have to agree things happen but I am wondering now if this is a bigger problem and I should've stuck with my scion with a perfect track record. With that said my big issue will be that the closest dealer is 2.5 hours away and will NOT be going there every day to fix it, and top it off it is a holiday week.

Does anyone know how to reset the light without service?

 

Yours is a clubman but this thread is about the Coupe. Not really relevent in my opinion. Two completely different cars and most likely not related.

 

Make sure you document everything while its fresh in your mind. Ideally I recommend doing everything via email and followup with a phone call, confirming the actions described in the email. Make sure to get the service manager. You should also retain copies of the work orders so that you can see what was done and have a record as well.

If you're not getting any attention, go to the local media, or at least threaten to. You may also consider contacting a lawer.

A brand new car with the problems you're having is completely unacceptable. I'm not sure what the lemonaide laws are, but see if it can be returned or swapped for another new MINI. The problems you're experiencing are not normal, and the service you're getting is unbelievable.

 

Sorry about that! I used the search tool and that was the closest one I could find and It sounded the same, really was just looking to find how to get rid of light...but I will keep looking somewhere else.
Thanks

 

I respectfully disagree. I've read the thread, and the OP has had the CEL come on 3 times, and a difficult start once. The dealer has only been involved with the first 2 CEL events, and the first time they couldn't find anything, the second time they found a hose was loose. The dealer hasn't yet had the opportunity to check on the difficult start event, the OP more or less blew that one off (occurred on 11/18, and the CEL came on 11/21 and the dealer still hasn't seen the car). I think there's probably a fuel delivery problem that caused the difficult start, and if it's something like a fuel pump they could fix it. Brand new cars do have problems sometimes, and diagnosing them can take time. I think calling a lawyer in this situation is premature. The dealer deserves a shot at diagnosing why the car wouldn't start correctly after the fillup. I would probably have taken it back asap after that. I'm not a dealer fanboy, and I've seen threads where I recommended legal services, but this isn't one of them (yet).

 

BigNewt:
I actually didn't "blow off" the difficult start. I decided to see if it reoccurred. The difficult startup happened on a Friday night, I didn't drive the car over the weekend but did check a couple of times to see if it had any startup issues. Once the CEL came on for the 3rd time Monday morning, I brought it directly to the dealer. At that time I did mention the difficult start on Friday night. However, as I suspected, they told me yesterday they could find no issue with startup as they are unable to recreate it. Like I said, I have been in IT for 20 yrs and realize that things break, parts become faulty, etc and that it is best for the technician to experience the failure before they can fix it (hence the wait and see approach to the difficult startup issue.) I find it hard to believe that if you were in the same situation you wouldn't be a little frustrated. It is easy to tell someone to relax and not over-react when you aren't being impacted by the situation. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate everybody's input and viewpoint. But I do think that most people would be mad as hell having to put up with this on a brand new car.

On a side note, they are going to replace the MAF sensor (shot in the dark because they can't find any problem on the diag computers). Not a 100% sold on this being the fix but you need to start somewhere to try and isolate the issue. My main concern is that I haven't even made the first payment on the car and it has already been to the shop three time. Makes me wonder about the reliability of the car over the long haul. Utah's lemon law states that you can persue action after the 4th occurance of the same issue inside the first year. If the sensor replacement isn't the fix, then I will look into further options.

 

Oh yeah, I'm all with you being frustratated/concerned about this crap right off the bat, don't get me wrong. I would be too. I was responding to Rixter's post about going to the local media and a lawyer at this point in time. That I wouldn't recommend (and I have plenty of legal experience but I am not a lawyer). I really hope they find the problem asap (I don't think they have found it yet). And fix it. I had a HPFP go out about 1.5 years after I got my Mini. It was hard to start for a few weeks. First start of the day, it would turn over and not fire up. I'd have to press the start button 2-3 times. Then fired up and ran fine. Once it started it ran fine the rest of the day. Then finally it just wouldn't start, I'd give it more gas with the pedal trying to give it more gas, it just sort of sputtered along and died. Then it did throw a code, buy not before the final event. The CEL never came on. Yours might be different, but the start problem Friday night after getting gas sounded like a fuel delivery problem.

 

Yeah, I am not to the point of lawyers/media yet... I am working with my dealer and have sent an email to corporate (just to rattle some chains.) I am holding off on the service survey to give the dealership a fair shot at resolution. I did get a loaner BMW 328 last night while they replace the MAF sensor. Can they run any diagnostics on the fuel pump to see if it is out of spec or does it need to throw a code first?