The background story: I'm on an advisory committee for an observatory on the MA/NH border, between Boston and Nashua. Elizabeth and I decided to do a
leisurely trip in the Red MCS -- about 1250 miles.

Saturday: Up to the Hudson thru NJ. EZ-Pass is wonderful [pulled thru all
the toll gates at 15 MPH with zero delays], even though the NJT and Garden
State are still a mess. Finally put in at Hyde Park.

Sunday: Spent the day touring the Roosevelt mansions, then drive the back
roads to North Barrington, Stockbridge and Lenox. Then Monday enjoyed the
Norman Rockwell museum and the other sights in the Berkshires. Tuesday up to
the new MassMoCA museum in North Adams. Then drove east on Mass Rte 2 all
the way to Westford for the meeting. The Mini is wonderful on these 2-lane
roads. Lots of Green. Beautiful sun.

Wednesday thru Friday were spent in meetings. All my colleagues are duly
impressed with the Mini. One had seen IJ and several others were convinced
to go see it.

---------------------------------

From here on, it's a downhill story: Friday morning I notice that the Mini's
steering feels like a FiretrUCK (firetruck is one of 2 words in the English
language that begins in F and ends in ***). I suspect a power steering
problem. Parallel parking becomes impossible.

As an aside, an exercise for the Mini aficionados -- open the official Mini
manual and try to find ANY reference to power steering. We all know of the
horror stories of cars that have ingested plastic bags in the fan underneath
the engine. But try to find a single reference -- even to the fluid
reservoir. It ain't there. [Hint -- the reservoir is on the firewall with no
labels at all. The reservoir is grayed out in all the "under the bonnet"
drawings.] But when I found it, the reservoir fluid levels were fine.

So I try calling the two Boston area Mini dealers. One had only an answering
machine -- "Dial your party's extension. If not dial zero for the store
directory" followed by "use the pad on your telephone to dial the party's
name". The second's only Mini technician was away on vacation.

Well, the car was drivable, even it if did feel like a firetruck. So we
finish out the holiday by visiting Salem and Quincy in the rain. Sunday we
drive to Hartford Sunday nite (in the pouring rain).

In Hartford, the very obliging New Country Mini dealership :smile: got me in first
thing Monday AM, and confirmed that the power steering compressor had fried
itself. And, because the power steering is an electrical pump, it made a
Crispy Crittur' out of the wiring harness too. They had pump, but would have
to order the replacement harness to make things whole. That would take a
couple of days. They confirmed that all possible damage had been done and
that if I didn't mind driving a firetruck, I should limp on home. The
problem was not due to ingesting a plastic bag -- the pump itself had
failed.

The rest of Monday was taken up on I84 thru PA, including rush our in
Harrisburg. NOT!


:smile: Up to this point, the built-in Mini Navigation system had been WONDERFUL! It
found obscure hotel, got me out of problems of picking the wrong exit. It
paid for itself in frustration. [A sultry female voice saying "in 300 yards,
try to make a legal U turn" calms the nerves when you screwed up and were in
the wrong lane to get to the backwater street you were trying to find!]

But at 5 PM Monday, while trying to navigate thru Harrisburg's horrible
traffic, the Nav system croaked too. It won't read the CD, and it won't
eject it either. Since Monday was hot & sunny, I speculate that the CD
reader under the seat simply fried itself too.

--------------------------------------------------

I'm just about due for the 10K service. I hope that Tate is up to the
challenge of handling so many items at one time. An initial phone call to
Tate (contrasting to the wonderful Hartford experience) kept me on hold for
15 minutes (on the cell fone, from a parking lot in PA with the temperature
at 90 and my temper reacting adversely) while trying to tell them the part
numbers of the items they needed to have on hand for warranty repairs.

On a one to ten scale, the first half of the trip was a full ten. The second
half was definitely in the "not a happy camper" mold.

Tom Clark

 

:smile: :smile:

Chow!

Donna
donna@dcmetrominis.org

 

Hey Tom i had a similar encounter to the first part of your story.

like i was driving around the city and the steering wheel was like Stiff As and can

barely move the damn wheel....and i was freaking out and i am going to take the

car for a thorough check up on Monday hopefully its going to be as good as new.

And i only got the car for like 6 months and man Was i freaked out... Hopefully i

don't have to pay anything to get it repaired if its still under warranty

ERIC

 

Hey Tom,

Thanks for sharing the good with the bad w/us. This is the first time I've read or heard of the steering going out on a Mini. I hope it gets repaired quickly for you.

Jim

_________________
Turning head syndrome began on 09-21-02. (Indi Blue)

 

Tom, sorry about your experience.

The observatory you visited is the MIT Haystack Radio Observatory? If so, you were virtually in my back yard. I live about 3/4 of a mile from there (as the crow flies). It's always entertaining to take visitors into my backyard where they can see the huge radio domes and dishes. Very sci fi. (and I only get my TV reception scrambled about once a month)

Specific to your MA service problems... I'm surprized that you experienced this problem with MINI of Peabody (MA). They are usually excellent and I've been able to get problems attended to very quickly. Gary and Kevin are GREAT! I do know about their voicemail...but this really shouldn't have been a problem if you called between 7am and 5pm M-F. Weekends would have been a different story (they're closed). Let me know if the problem was during normal business hours, as I'd be suprized. Oh, this wasn't labor day weekend was it?

On the other hand, Herb Chambers MINI (in Boston) is a horror show. They really shouldn't be a MINI dealer and from what I can tell (read the Dealer Rating thread), they have no interest at all in customer service. Herb's dealers (he has about 15 selling everything from Kias to MINIs) are legendary rip off joints. I believe that there's someone from the organization who permanently resides in a Boston courthouse just to represent the dealer in a never-ending series of lawsuits.

Anyway, sorry for your problems, but good to know you had a nice New England trip otherwise!

 

I'm with MINI USA. I've passed this message on to a MINI National Customer Relations Representative who will be in touch with you soon, or if you prefer, you can call us at (866) ASK MINI.

 

Hi MINIDivision....how are you today?

 

>>> I'm with MINI USA. I've passed this message on to a MINI National Customer Relations Representative who will be in touch with you soon, or if you prefer, you can call us at (866) ASK MINI.


DAMN THE MACHINE!!!

 

I am starting to hear more and more complaints about not only fried power steering pumps, but also burnt wiring and outright fires as a result.

I looked under the bonnet and found a 50amp fuse for the steering. I am wondering now if I can reduse it to 40 or maybe 30 with no trouble, that would at least keep things from burning down when the pump (seemingly inevitably) goes.

I know the pump draws a sizeable amount of power, this can be shown by having the headlights on and the wheel turned from side to side; you will see the lights dim. Maybe it would be some extra protection to under-fuse the circuit.

Just my 20 millidollars worth!

 

"It's funny cause it's true." -- h.j. simpson

 

>>>>
>>
>>
>>"It's funny cause it's true." -- h.j. simpson

BWAHAHAHAHA!

DaveinDenver, you are my hero.

I am stealing this for my sig.



_________________

 

I must compliment MINIUSA in my regards. I have been having problems with AC causing my MINI to lose RPMs at idle in first gear & sometimes stalling. After a visit to the dealer(they found nothing wrong)this info received from the Cashier ,I received a call from MINIUSA about the visit. Yesterday, I received a call from the Master Tech at STLMINI who offered to see my MINI next week when the weather turns hot again & investigate the problem. He also offered me a courtesy car. Hats off to MINIUSA & STLMINI for addressing the issues.

Lois

 

MINIUSA and my local dealer have been good (they've had too many opportunites to show that in my case, but still they've been good).

The thing we're hitting at here is that on MCO the replies from MINI Division haven't been of that same high caliber response. The "Control-C" "Control-V" responses have grown tiresome and it's time for MINIUSA to post in a more personal way on this board.

 

>>MINIUSA and my local dealer have been good (they've had too many opportunites to show that in my case, but still they've been good).
>>
>>The thing we're hitting at here is that on MCO the replies from MINI Division haven't been of that same high caliber response. The "Control-C" "Control-V" responses have grown tiresome and it's time for MINIUSA to post in a more personal way on this board.


Oh, so it's not a reply-bot of some sort. Bummer!

 

DID, I LOVE that sig pic!

 

>> :smile: got me in first
>>thing Monday AM, and confirmed that the power steering compressor had fried
>>itself. And, because the power steering is an electrical pump, it made a
>>Crispy Crittur' out of the wiring harness too. They had pump, but would have
>>to order the replacement harness to make things whole. That would take a
>>couple of days. They confirmed that all possible damage had been done and
>>that if I didn't mind driving a firetruck, I should limp on home. The
>>problem was not due to ingesting a plastic bag -- the pump itself had
>>failed.
>>
>>:x The rest of Monday was taken up on I84 thru PA, including rush our in
>>Harrisburg. NOT!
>>
>>
>> Up to this point, the built-in Mini Navigation system had been WONDERFUL! It
>>found obscure hotel, got me out of problems of picking the wrong exit. It
>>paid for itself in frustration. [A sultry female voice saying "in 300 yards,
>>try to make a legal U turn" calms the nerves when you screwed up and were in
>>the wrong lane to get to the backwater street you were trying to find!]
>>
>>:x But at 5 PM Monday, while trying to navigate thru Harrisburg's horrible
>>traffic, the Nav system croaked too. It won't read the CD, and it won't
>>eject it either. Since Monday was hot & sunny, I speculate that the CD
>>reader under the seat simply fried itself too.
>>
>>--------------------------------------------------
>>
>>I'm just about due for the 10K service. I hope that Tate is up to the
>>challenge of handling so many items at one time. An initial phone call to
>>Tate (contrasting to the wonderful Hartford experience) kept me on hold for
>>15 minutes (on the cell fone, from a parking lot in PA with the temperature
>>at 90 and my temper reacting adversely) while trying to tell them the part
>>numbers of the items they needed to have on hand for warranty repairs.
>>
>>On a one to ten scale, the first half of the trip was a full ten. The second
>>half was definitely in the "not a happy camper" mold.
>>
>>Tom Clark

Same thing happened to my Mini. The PS pump stopped and the harness burned up causing black soot to cover the inside of my engine compartment. The service manager stated that it may have been caused by the skid plate I installed which caused air flow to the PS pump to be restricted. Frankly, I think thats BS! The car was fixed under warranty and the soot cleaned up and my Mini works great now. Took three weeks to get the new pump and to install it, however, the last two weeks Mini paid for a rental car.

Bernie

 

My pump just went out as well. Has anyone tried to replace the pump themselves? I don't have the $1600 that the dealer wants to charge me, and the saddest part is- my '02 MCS just hit the 51K mark to put me out of warranty. :(
Advice would be much appreciated! I found a pump for only $95 from a junk yard, but can't seem to find replacement instruction manuals online.