I bought my CM used, thought I would take it to the dealer to get an oil change and they said I should do the following in addition to the oil change:

1. Scope - $175
2. Brake Flush $169
3. Replace filters $150

Holy crap!

I told them to do the brake flush and the oil change. I will do the filters myself.

Where can I find the engine filter and the cabin filter?

 

You, my friend, need a good Independent shop to trust your car with.

I was going to say the brake fluid flush is stupid simple, but doesnt exactly sound like your cup of tea. Air filter locations should be nicely noted in your owners manual. They are very simple to change as well, though the engine one does require a torx bit to remove the cover...its the long half-round thing at the top of the engine near the firewall. Cabin filter is behind the glove box.

The scope thing is pretty pointless on the N18 engine...not a lot of buildup in them.

I did, however pay the dealer to change the belt once...sounded like a royal pain to get to. I think I gave them about $150 to tackle that.

 

We have many vendors on this site to choose from. Look at the thread listing all the Vendors. For filters you can also find them pretty cheaply on Amazon or Ebay. The dealer will always try to sell you on extra's. In your case that was a very light list. Wait till they start showing you $2500 worth of stuff.

 

Oil change includes oil filter........sounds like you need to do a bit of research on what car maintenance is all about.

 

Yes, I have one in mind but thought I would just go to the dealer because it was logistically easier.

I am going to do my own filters.

 

We took our "new to us" 2015 Countryman S All4 to our dealer last month for state inspection....they said it needed an oil change although it only had about 1500 miles on it since we bought it...but it had been a year almost, so I said "yes"; then they mentioned about some "scope thing" that checks for rust, etc....which sounded fishy to me, so I didn't have that done (the service manager said he wouldn't bother either!)...go figure! Then of course they recommended a new cabin filter. The car only has about 16,000 miles on it. Then they noticed that the windshield washer pump wasn't working, and since we had bought it only 11 months ago (& I had never used the washer I didn't know it was broken), they installed a new one - no charge. Although we had to wait much of the afternoon for the work to be completed, we only paid around $170 for everything including the state inspection. So, that wasn't bad AT ALL! Great service and friendly people, so they aren't all bad!

 

The time for an oil change should be dependent on mileage and time. The advice I have most often heard for limited use vehicles is 1 year. I have heard others recommend 6 months. My plan is to go with 1 year or 5,000 miles.

When I bought my MINI, They said they just did an oil change. I assume they used the cheapest oil they could find and immediately had it done again with full synthetic.

 

You can get Mann filters on partsgeek.com for reasonable prices.

 

We have the kits and the Mann filters, also the oil filter socket to take the housing cap off.

 

under the maintenance plan MINI will change oil when the computer says so or 12 months since last change - or this has always been the rules for me since 2002

now the funny thing is they WILL rigorously follow those rules even if it makes no sense:

I hit 12 months one time and they changed the oil, I was within 500 miles of a computer driven change and they did not reset the counter

so 500 miles later they did the oil again and at that time did the other miles driven checks . . .

 

Here is my story relative to the MINI dealer (never to return to hopefully):

I had bought a clean/used 2014 MC for my daughter (less than 50K miles). After having it only for about 2 or 3 weeks, it all of a sudden started throwing all sorts of codes and lights. Limp mode off/on and left my daughter stranded several times :-(. I used my code reader which was not much help since I guess MINI has their own codes, however the ones I pulled seemed to indicate communication issues with the computer. So, out of desperation, I brought it to the MINI dealer (my first time) hoping they could help get to a root cause... After having it for a day they come back to me with a $2100 bill/quote. Break down of the bill was to fix a leaking CV boot (which I knew of all ready) = $1400 and replace the MAP sensor ($700). I told them no thanks about the CV boot (which I'm disappointing it needed attention with less the 50K miles anyway) and what was the deal with the $700 MAP sensor? I asked them to give me the part number and they did (it was a MINI part number and cross referenced to a BOSCH part). I researched at found the part for $35 as well as where it was located and how to replace. I pressed the dealer on this being the root cause to all these lights/issues and major problem? They gave me an entire page of their codes which was extremely alarming. I didn't see how replacing a MAP would fix all these problems. I complained about the diagnosis and corrective action and they said I could the sensor myself and assured me that it would solve all the problems. I smelled BS the entire time :-(.

Well, I certainly was done with the MINI dealer at this point and bought the MAP sensor myself and was ready to replace it since I had no idea what else to try (researching independent shops to help).. During this time of waiting for the part to arrive, I continued to research the problem/codes and symptoms myself and LUCKILY stumbled upon the R1 relay which checking fuses and connections (the basics).... I was able to play with this relay and depending on fiddling with it, the car would start or not; and throw all these codes or not; as well as if running would cause it to die... What a nightmare mess of a vehicle really I thought, but again the fact that I may have found the root cause was a massive relief.

So, I simply swapped the R1 relay that seemed to be intermittent with the R3 (cooling?) relay to test. I didn't know if the issue was the relay, connection, fuse box, or wires. But did have a good idea now that this area was the problem. I looked/and found an entire fuse box on ebay for $25 and bought it! Ultimately, It came loaded with all relays/fuses and I could take it apart to learn something maybe about the connections. However, simply having swapped the relay solved the massive problems! The car has been fine ever since. The real fix was FREE! when I was ready to set it on fire and had the experts trying to clean my wallet for $2100 and not even solve the problem... I wasted money at the dealer paying them $170 for the "scope" and page of their codes, $35 for a MAP sensor I didn't need, and $25 for the used fuse box.

Once I received the used fuse box however, it took one of the relay and put it in to change out the suspect "intermittent" digital relay I moved to the cooling circuit for good measure. Again, it has been months now and all is fine. Root cause seemed to be an "intermittent" relay.

I'm just so disappointed in my MINI dealer experience in so many ways from a competency standpoint. The relief to find and solve the root cause myself is immense... I just hope I don't have to experience anything further/similar with this vehicle because I'm hearing and reading all sorts of horror stories with lights and problems people have.

 

Apparently the lackluster sales at MINI are causing them to lean more heavily on the service department to steal your money.

 

I would have paid their ridiculousness even had I been confident they had the root cause and corrective action right.... Instead I got away with $170 and a page of their codes...