I had a very good experience w/ Irvine Mini. I was in California
on vacation and my car started acting up. First in traffic the EML
light comes on, then after i turn off the car and restart, it goes out
and stays out till i'm in low speed traffic again. Later in the day the
"Check engine soon" light comes on and the car starts to idle erratically.
I stop and find a place to spend the night and get out the mini road atlas
and call the nearest dealer, which is Irvine Mini, who is very helpful
and says to bring the car in first thing in the morning, 2 hours later
car is fixed and back on the road. They found a leaking intercooler boot
as well as replacing the wipers and the brake fluid.

 

I am glad you did. I will not take any of my cars back there. Had nothing but nightmares with my Mini that I took there and my bimmers. Maybe they are cleaning up their act.

 

I had new brake pads put on there....$400 bucks later!!!! I even supplied the brake pads!!! Insane

 

I bought my MINI from Crevier and had never thought of taking it to Irvine MINI even though it is just a few miles from my work.

But one day the car would not start, turned over fine, just wouldn't fire.
Called MINI roadside assistance and they sent a flat bed to take me to the nearest dealer, Irvine MINI.

One look at my car and they said "you don't really expect us to look at this under warranty do you?" (I have a few mods ) That will be $260 for 2 hours of trouble shooting! Without a lot of choices, I told them to go ahead.
Doesn't sound too good so far.

But strangely enough the story actually turned out OK.

When the flat bed picked up my car, which is very low, they ripped off the lower front supports for the Aero front bumper. They were very apologetic and said when the car is done bring it by the body shop they have on retainer and they will fix it. I wonder why a towing company has a body shop on retainer.

My car also had the brake pad light on from before we installed the Wilwood BBK, plus when the seats were re-upholstered the ignition was turned on & that that sets off the passenger air bag warning light that can only be reset by the dealer. The car was also ready for its Inspection 2 service at 25,000 miles.

Well the mechanics found the problem with the car not starting, which was a loose wire in the ECU, probably left over from some previous mod involving a piggy back unit. So $260 to find this elusive wire that had been causing problems for a while, was not bad considering the uncertainty of the car not starting when ever it decided not to.

Now the real surprise, when I went to pick up the car, the damaged Aero kit structure had been repaired, the brake sensor had been replaced, the air bag light had been reset and the 25,000 mile service and oil changed had been performed. No extra charges or even a mention that they had fixed all these other items.

So in my one visit there, I think they treated me fairly.

Bill

 

I haven't heard many good things about them, which is sad because they will soon be the closest dealership for me. Still, they can't be as bad as Assael.

 

Dont even get me started on them ahahah

 

I have a GOOD Irvine Mini esperience.

However, the previous three where terrible.

My good one was when I wrote them an essay on each and every issue, and detailed exactly how to re-produce the faults. My list included check-boxes for them to initiall that they could or could not find it, complete with details on how to contact me if they could not figure things out.

My drop-off took at hour, I took the SA out with me to illustrate each issue and got them to read the issues list.

They did a mostly OK job - only one new scratch on the door and only a couple of new issues the following week...

 

seams like its just better to go to crevier or long beach mini. I bought my car from Long Beach and I love them. Great People

 

Crevier tried to rip me off and bait and switch me after my drive up there from SD. I'll never do business with Crevier. After dealing with them, I saw Irvine off of the freeway and bought mine w/o a problem. Service has been great ever since.

 

sales wise crevier is bad...however for car service and parts they are pretty good. Im still a Long Beach person for life. They really take care of there customers. They send me a X-mas card still! Ive boughten two mini's from them. One in 2002 and one in 2004. Sold the '04 while ago. If I was going to buy another mini id pick them. first ever MSRP dealer in CA

 

It's good to hear good things about Irvine. Basil only has 3000 miles so far, so not many chances to deal with the service department yet. Only one little issue with the ipod adapter, and that got replaced pretty quickly.

 

It is good to hear good to hear nice things about Irvine. I personally felt overlooked, as when i went to in to look around i didnt hear from a MA for about 40 minutes, but you bet the BMW guys were jumping all over me. I personally (coming from a customer service POV) hate when people overlook young people, or women, or a certain group assuming they wont buy. When i was talked to I was given a load of BS and I knew it. They were trying to tell me MINI was telling them to mark up, but all that aside, if it works for you, Great! thats what matters

 

Well so far I've had a good experiance with Irvine.. Although trying to buy an armrest from their parts department was horrible.
I knew what I wanted and the parts guy was trying to talk me out of buying it. Then after about 20 mins of talking to him he finnally went and got the part. He opened the box and told me the instructions were in the box and closed it back up. I didn't know I needed another part at the time so I purchased the armrest and left back to Riverside.
I got home and found that the "instructions" were an e-mail that was entirly in German, but luckly I found them online. I get most of the install done and find I need another part.
My sales guy was nice, but so far the parts department needs some improvement (hire someone that know what they are talking about).
But I've only been there the two times. So it's not much to judge by yet.