I see MINIs with deformed hood scoops all the time, I think most owners don't even look at their scoops, except the ones on NAM.

There maybe other issues with this carbon fiber scoop since it was painted. To paint most surfaces you have to prep the finish, which in most cases means scuffing the surface with sand paper. If it's done mechanically too much maybe taken off and primer fillers maybe added to try to level out dimples. This wouldn't under normal situations mean much, but the your scoop is over a high heat area and the paint and fillers would shrink fairly quickly and reveal the imperfection. This also happens on regular walls,- if you ever paint a wall and it looks okay after you painted it and a year later you notice all kinds of defects you know what I'm talking about. Not knowing how and what was done to the scoop during the paint process is critical, and since it was not painted by the manufacturer they may not warranty the scoop, I hope this is not the case. Did the dealer do the paint job?

 

I am considering buying the Clubman S.
I do not expect every car produced to be trouble free or without design defects, what I do expect is that the manufacturer will correct defects and keep its customers satisfied, in or out of warranty. I had a Mercedes C320 (not a trouble free vehicle) but the Mercedes dealership (Devon,PA) was excellent. After reading your post and some of the others I am more concerned that BMW does not provide adequate support (which is the reason I bought a Yamaha motorcycle instead of a BMW- at least I am not paying an extra $5k for support that I am not getting).
My question is simple: Has Mini and the dealership been responsive and corrected problems without making you fight for the service and repairs that you are entitled to?

 

That is a loaded question. I can only answer for myself. I have not taken delivery yet but my experience so far has been great. (I wouldn't expect it to be anything less especially since I have not taken delivery, yet.) But I think that MINI as a car company wants nothing but happy and satisfied customers. (Especially in light of todays economy.) As far as dealers I think it depends on the dealer. I am in the car business and I can tell you that the distance between a good dealer and a poor dealer are worlds apart and there are plenty of both. Regardless of the brand. In many cases it is easy to tell the bad from the good just by looking at a dealership. What do the service area and reception areas look like? Clean, organized and tidy or dirty and dishelved? This tells a lot about the way a dealership is run. Lets face it most dealerships are independently owned and operated and as such you have good dealers and bad. Some folks just are too shortsighted and not good business people. This is almost always reflected in the appearance of the dealership. It's not a hard and fast rule but many times it is indicative of how a dealership is managed.

Since there are a limited number of MINI dealerships it's difficult to find another if you experience poor service, especially in rural areas. That probably is the most frustrating thing for a lot of folks. Even if the dealership is good but you have to travel a long way for service , that alone can put a sour taste in your mouth.

Anyway, that's my take on it. Probably didn't answer your question but at least you know my take on it. (Gotta rest now.)

Regards,

Pat

 

EXACTLY!

There is a HUGE difference between a random defect, or a rare defect, and not addressing a common problem. The most obvious instance of this in the case of MINI, imo, is the strut tower mushrooming on the 1st Gens. The incredible frequency of the problem makes it ridiculous that MINI did NOTHING about it. I mean, at least they're pretending to do something about some of these other problems. As far as I know, they never even acknowledged the mushrooming... and as a result, I do NOT own an R53. Poorly engineered STRUCTURAL members are not just an inconvenience like a sunroof or something, either, and it's disturbing that it was never addressed... except that it seems they corrected the problem on the R56's, given that I have yet to hear of any deformation on these.

 

This is a hard question to answer. Assuming you have a great dealership to deal with. (the one I deal with is 4 hours from my house.... I'd rather drive 4 hours than go to the one less than 15 minutes from me) then yes, the dealerships are great to deal with.

The problem is that no matter how good a dealership is to deal with, if they can't fix the problem because they don't know how, then it goes back to the manufacturer.

So in answer to your question, yes, Mini service has been superb. Unfortunately, they are fixing my problems with the directions that Mini has supplied.

If Mini is giving incorrect solutions, you can't blame the dealership. I think the manufacturer should step up to the plate and say "yes, we have a problem and are working on it".

Instead, we get nothing.... 3 years and still can't fix a sunroof, chattering engine or melting hoodscoop.

Much like the poster that mentioned the mushrooming of the strut towers. I honestly believe that if mini wasn't going to redesign the poor design, they should have given a free strut defender out to every mini owner to prevent problems....

I've been in the bodyshop business for over 25 years. One of my shops is 13 years old and is word of mouth and referall only... we're not even in the phone books yet we do the majority of acura and lexus work in town.

My point is, we are not perfect, we make mistakes. The difference (IMO) is how a shop handles it's mistakes. If we do something wrong, I step up to the plate and fix it.

Perfect example, we fixed a qtr panel on a honda pilot last year. It was written up through the insurance company to replace. We repaired it with the customer's permission and gave the difference in money back to the customer.

Now a year later, they're having bodywork issues (it's cracking) Upon inspection, I believe that the work was done incorrectly. I could have fixed it again or do the right thing... which was replace the qtr panel.

So here I am a year and a half later spending almost 2K to fix a car correctly. I didn't want to spend the money but I wanted to do the right thing.

Mini should too.

Mark

 

Hey, Mark, isn't that considered defrauding the insurance company?

They think they've paid for a replacement (and insure the car as such), but

in fact are only insuring a repaired vehicle. Why didn't the money go back to the insurance company? Just curious... ?

 

The insurance company's want you to think so.... but nope, not at all....

Let me explain why. You are buying insurance so that the insurance company will pay for damages done to your car. They are responsible to give you the funds to bring your car back to preaccident condition.

They can't make you fix your car. If you decide to drive around with it wrecked, there is nothing they can do about it. What if you decide to trade the wrecked car in on a new car?


I'll give you an example. If I bought a million dollar policy for a rare painting and the painting gets destroyed, you are insuring the painting for the replacement value if it gets destroyed. There is no rule that says you have to replace the painting.... same thing for the most part.

We get customers in all the time (especially now that the economy is slow) that will have a $3800 estimate for instance. It's not uncommon for them to have us do half the work so they keep some money.

The only "gray" area is when a car has a lien. The insurance check is usually made out to the bodyshop and/or customer and lien holder.

That is to protect the lien holder but legally they still can't make you fix it. The reason is that the owner is responsible for turning in the car (in a lease for example) in a satisfactory condition. If it is not, the value will be lower and in turn, the customer will end up paying for it one way or another.

Mark

 

Your answer makes sense, except if you keep the car and get it insured again. At that point, the car with repairs is (perhaps?) worth less than the car with replacement parts. But then, the insurance company would (perhaps?) pay you less for your car if were later totalled, since it is both a repaired car and one that has been in a previous accident.

My head hurts...sure am glad I don't have to think about stuff like that for more than 3-4 minutes at a time!

 

That's another whole ball of wax called depreciation.

Mark

 

One thing to remember is that once the repairs are made, you need to provide that info to the insurance company along with the repair order or receipt of what was done. If you don't, your vehicle has notes on it in their database that the funds were issued but the repair was never done. If you have another accident with the same things being damaged, your claim will be denied. If you only have part of the repairs done, that is supposed to be noted on the repair order or receipt. Now obviously you could have the body shop note that all the repairs were done and the insurance company wouldn't know the difference. Until, you had another accident, go in to the adjuster and they see a bunch of rust around the area you didn't repair. They will question that.

Insurance companies do a very good job of protecting themselves, you want to be sure you understand all of the facets of your claim so you don't get into a situation where you will be denied a claim. Best thing to do is not keep the money and have the vehicle repaired fully.

 

That's the BEST advice right there.... it makes everything go so much smoother and easier. No worries, no problems later.

Mark

 

My car is starting to frustrate me. Ive had it since march and ive already had 3 separate incidents which needed dealer attention and its going in for the 4th soon. My R53 wasn't in for repairs this often.

The first thing was a minor cosmetic issue, and just an inconvenience cause i had to drive 45 miles to the dealer to get a dash piece replaced.

The second service was for a rattle at idle, which turned out to need a new clutch assembly/flywheel.

The third service was related to the second, an odd noise downshifting into 2nd required a new transmission. Yup. A completely new entire transmission. Mind you the car has 6000 miles at this point.

Now, less than a month after the new transmission the alarm spontaneously goes off. Monday night my car was at a friends house in a quiet neighborhood and the alarm would go off every 5 minutes for 30 seconds. I wasnt around to stop it, but after a couple hours or so it stopped. Police were involved...it got messy. I saw it happen at least 2 other times but was able to stop it before anything got bad.

7k miles, and ive put about 2k on the loaner ive had. Longest its been in for any of these services was 2 weeks. If anything else happens im gonna be very angry and possibly go back to an R53.

 

Thanks, flyinlow, that was a good explanation and makes a lot of sense. I've never tried to get money back, but it's logical that there'd have to be some repercussions of doing so.

Sort of same subject: why do auto glass companies ask you whether or not you're covered by insurance before they give you a quote? That's happened to me more than once. It irritates me, because I assume they are somehow gaming the system.

 

Hmmm... sounds like my long-gone R53... and people wonder why I went auto for my 09....

 

Bingo! I've had this same experience and it makes me very leery of doing business with such a company. What ethical difference does it make to the glass vendor if they're paid by iinsurance company or car owner?

My suspicion...and perhaps yours..it that perhaps the "covered by insurance " quote come in higher with the benefit going to the glass installer...then perhaps too, they quote jobs differently.....if "insurance" quote with o.e. spec glass..otherwise, cheaper no-name glass????

Anybody know the inside scoop on glass replacement?

Rick

 

The reason glass companies ask is because most major glass companies have preset pricing for parts and labor with insurance companies.

Depending on the insurance company, they may or may not use what I call cheaper quality glass. Sometimes customers want factory glass. You can usually buy 3 different types of glass.

1) factory glass. (no manufacturer actually makes their own glass. Usually a company like LOR will make it and stamp the manufacturer's symbol on it)

2) NAGS glass. aftermarket but supposedly a certain standard when talking about quality.

3) aftermarket glass.... generally much cheaper quality.

So, depending on who is paying the bill, the glass company will give different prices depending on quality.

HTH's,

Mark


Even if they don't use it, they most certainly give different prices for labor.

 

Thanks Mark..Great explanation.

I know I recently had a windshield replaced that was covered by insurance and I received LOF branded glass so I was happy with that deal.

Rick

 

We live in Texas and have one of the first R56's of the line. We now have 30k and have had not a single problem. My wife parks the car in the sun for 8hours everyday in the summer sun while at work then, drives home in the Dallas traffic and, by the way my wife drives hard. I have heard the complaints about scoop warp and ours still looks great. We our members of our locals Dallas Mini group and know several R56 owners many of which are track cars and, none have had problems with scoop warp. Wonder if it could possable be from the change in climate (hot/cold/hot/cold)?

 

I have an R56 just a cooper and don't have any experience with the turbo version. I do have a question about the turbo. Is it possible that those with melting hood scoops are pushing their turbos hard just before parking the car? Turbos get really hot (I've seen some glowing red!) and if the latent heat in the turbo is not disipated somewhat before engine shut off, the nearby plastic (hood scoop) might melt. A heat shield might help. Allowing the car to idle for a minute of two after hard driving might help also. Thoughts?

 

Damn Mark why couldn't you have a body shop up here :( ?! I know where I would be sending my cars.

 

Shutterbug,

Some of the heat shields apparently work, but why should anyone need to even think about spending $200 for one during the first 4 years? If one is needed, it should be standard equipment.

I don't have a problem with mine (yet...it only has 1000 miles on it), but as I've mentioned earlier in this thread, I've seen quite a few in this neighborhood. (And remember, this is only an issue with 2007+ MCS models).

 

Well, you could be like my last couple of customers when I was on the Corvette forum, they drove down from Maryland to NC for us to paint hoods, ground effects, etc.




That's exactly my point. I don't expect any car to be perfect, it just ain't gonna happen. However, if they know there is a model defect inherent in most or many of a certain model, they need to either fix it or make a fix.

As many problems as they have had, mini should supply heat shields if that cures the problem.

Mark

 

My MINI is "Just-a-Cooper" so I don't have a lot of experience with the MINI turbos....

If my memory is correct, however, with the 2007 models year, MINI changed the "S" version swapping the superchager for a turbo. Superchargers are driven from the crankshaft (less heat); turbos are driven by exhaust gases (more heat). It could be that this change places a significantly larger heatload directly (or close to) the hood scoop. This could explain why only 2007 and later models are affected with melting hood scoops. Spirited driving with no cooldown period before parking would exacerbate the heat problem near the hood scoop.

Do any of the aftermarket vendors make an all metal hoodscoop? I'm guessing if someone likes spirited driving and has issues with the melting hood scoop, a metal version would solve the problem. This may just be another factor in the cost of ownership for a 2007+ MCS (like higher auto insurance, and higher gas consumption, and higher maintenance costs). Usually, higher performance cars have higher cost of ownership. Just my 2 cents.

Regards,

 

You are absolutely correct that the cause of the melting scoop is the extremely hot turbocharger residing under the scoop.

However, it is factory-equipped and it should therefore:

- Not be melting the factory bodywork
- Or if it DOES, then there should be a factory-backed no-cost fix.

I understand that some cars have higher maintenance costs, but these should include things like:

- More expensive performance tires
- More frequent tire changes due to soft compound
- Higher Quality Oil
- More frequent oil changes
- More expensive brake pads for oversized braking systems

... things like that.

Replacing melted bodywork on an otherwise stock car is not consistent with "higher maintenance costs." It's not maintenance at all, it's poor engineering and/or testing... just like the strut tower problems were on the 1st Gens.

 

On the melting hood scoop issue, I think most owners who are not NAM readers probably do not even notice their scoop has melted. The deflection in most cases I have seen is not a lot, but if you know to look for it you can see it.