My dealership, MAG MINI in Dublin Ohio has been absolutely great to work with. Every service & issue that has needed to be done was done right. They always give me a nice MINI as a loaner too. My next MINI will come from MAG because of that great service.

 

I got fed up with my dealership (they claim now they need "some more time" to diagnose my issue and won't give me a definite time to give me my car back - they have had it since August 14th), so I wrote BMW of Germany and MINI in England.

I asked them to honor my warranty and deliver my car, and questioned their practices on warranty work. Plus I asked them why I got 2 years of warranty compared to 4 years in the US.


Last time I did it I had my R53, and all my issues were fixed immediately. I just think this step should be unnecessary.

Oh, well.

 

I have been treated extremely well from the initial test drive throughout the purchase experience and after the sale by Desert MINI in Las Vegas, NV. Not all the folks in my local MINI Club feel the same way but sometimes I think that employees in dealerships tend to treat people the way they are treated. Perhaps we could try to understand their reality and not be so quick to get angry at the messenger.

 

kukaepe: As a general rule, I agree that this is true. I have seen it in practice. But, the reverse is also true.

Many of the customers at my dealership seem to be long distance customers. I live about a five hour drive away from my dealership and have to make PLANS to go over there for a service visit. I planned my last trip to the dealership two months in advance.

When you drive five hours to a dealership, and ask for a loaner and are promised one over the phone twice, you expect one to be there when you get to the dealership. It wasn't. Even that would have been fine, if they hadn't promised to find a car for me and then failed to follow up on it and left me stranded at a motel for 24 hours in a strange city, in a business district with 1 restaurant within walking distance.

You also expect them to call you back and tell you what's going on with your car when they say they will. So when you hear, "I'll call you before end of business today and let you know where we are." and you don't receive that phone call, I think you have a right to be angry.

Maybe I shouldn't have bought a MINI given that the dealership is so far from where I live, but I received assurances from nearly everyone on that staff before I bought my car that they had a lot of customers that drive from very far away, that out of town customers get priority on loaners and that they were willing to make arrangements for vehicles for customers when loaners are promised if they become unavailable. I was made a lot of promises that simply were not kept on my last service visit and that's just the start of what went wrong.

Now, you may not care that my friend promised her kid that she would tuck her into bed that night, but a dealership... SHOULD. That sort of stuff is what customer service is all about and customer service is an SA's entire job. And if they can't keep their promises, that's fine. Tell the customer that. Tell them. Don't let them sit in a motel for 24 hours wondering if their car exploded while you were in there taking it apart. Don't let them wonder about weather or not they have a way home.

My MINI obviously looks like I love it. I have a custom plate, I have custom graphics, I have badges and decals all over the thing. The car is over a year old and there is not a single swirl mark in the paint because I wash my car by hand and detail it myself. I will not let just anyone put their hands on my baby.. My paint still looks as good as it did the day I bought the car. So did nearly every other MINI sitting on that lot that was waiting for service. MINI owners tend to care about their cars, more so than any other group of car buyers that I have ever encountered. Dealerships KNOW that and for an SA to not care enough about a customer's car to call them and let them know repair status... is just flat out inexcusable.

No one deserves that treatment.

Sometimes... the staff at dealerships are just genuine jerks.

 

I agree with you - actually, the guy who has been in touch with me has been very friendly.

The problem at this point is not him. It's the relationship between my dealer and the plant. I can't believe the plant needs so much proof that cars have a manufacturing defect, and that the dealer can't send it in less than, say, two days.

Anyway, I just called the dealer and he told me the car was repaired, but they'd keep it two days more to test it. Why they need two whole days is beyond me, but hey. Beats having the car by September.

 

I think how you get treated depends on the ownership of the particular dealership...leadership from above. My first experience was with Bill Jacobs BMW/MINI. The MINI part of the operation was treated like a red-headed stepchild, and all of the staff acted like they had been sentenced to purgatory, they wanted to be on the BMW side of the house. I did NOT buy my car from there. My second experience was with Patrick MINI. They are also a BMW/MINI combo, but the MINI staff was very happy, and they truly seem to enjoy the whole MINI scene. I did buy my car from them. They have been very pleasant to deal with. Bottom line, find a MINI dealership that enjoys the cars as much as we do, not a BMW dealership that sells MINIs because they have to.

 

So, I got my car back on Friday.

It was dirty on the inside and the outside, but it was back. YES!

Then, the service manager tells me to be careful - the car is out of gas. What?

Apparently, the dealership needed 100 miles to test my car. And they left it as dirty as they could. I didn't mind and left the dealer. 10 minutes later I was back. The speedo was lose and making strange noises.

So they asked me to keep the car for a day.

Saturday morning I go pick the car. It's clean! Looks great! I'm happy! So I take the car.

20 minutes later, someone on a car along me lowers his window. I'm curious. He says "Careful - you are dragging something beneath your car!"

I let out a couple of loud curses, and stop my car. Underneath, one of the skidplates (is that the name? It's the thing that goes below the car and protects everything down there) is dangling by a single screw. I take a quick look on the other side. There's nothing there - either there's no skidplate there, or it has already fallen away.

I take a screwdriver and remove the skidplate.

Tomorrow, the car goes back to the dealership. This time, though, I won't be a nice guy. I know it won't help, but at least someone is going to hear my this time.

***k MINI, ***k BMW, ***k this. I regret the day I decided to buy this **** of ****. I should have bought just about anything else rather than this.

 

I've been treated like crap from Toyota , Chrysler , Honda and Mini Dealers , I'm used to it . The bad treatment usualy starts the first time I bring it in for the first repair and continues until I just give up on them .

 

Took my car back to the dealership. They said -I- must have done something, because this usually didn't happen, raise the car, install the skidplate or whatever, and sent me on my merry way.

Oh, and the water pump / pulley noise is back.

This is, I suppose, my punishment for selling a perfectly good Honda.

 

Call MINI, this is ridiculous. How many botched/half-baked repairs is it going to take for this dealership to get them right?

I may have been irritated (okay, nuclear explosion furious) at the way I was treated by the customer service staff at my dealership, but the guys in the shop did a damned fine job of fixing what I asked them to fix so that I did not have to go back.

 

I'll drive the car for a week. If the noise is back, the car goes back, and I'm demanding a loaner - I don't care it wasn't in my contract. I'm not losing my car for another 3 weeks.

This is absurd. My sister wants to buy a new car and we went visiting a couple of dealers. I told her to get a new Mini, and she laughed and told me "why? So I'm left without a car every month, like you do?"

She bought an A3. I should have done so, too.

 

I have had service and aftermarket experience with three different dealers. Two are exclusively MINI and the third is a combined BMW/MINI. I have received much better service (friendlier and more knowledgeable) and lower prices from the MINI-only dealers. At the BMW/MINI dealer, the closest to where I live, I feel like I am pointed to coach while the BMW owner behind me gets first class.

Example: When I had the JCW stage one engine kit installed the BMW/MINI dealer told me they didn't want to do it! On the other hand, the MINI-only dealer not only was anxious to do it but also gave me a loaner.

 

I've been a Mini fan all my life - had 3 original Minis back in the day. Talked my wife into an 06 MCS and she loves it. We were so excited when a local Mini dealer opened here in Pensacola. My first trip to the dealer, I went in to get my wife a rear wiper blade, but that was just an excuse to look at a new Clubman. I was ready to make a deal that day. After an hour spent being ignored and snubbed, and eventually sold the wrong part, I've decided not to buy a car from that dealership any time in the near future. How do they figure that treating walk-in customers like crap will help sell cars? Are Mini owners supposed the be attracted to snobbery?

 

Back in 2003, I wanted to buy a new car... I was 29 at the time.

Went to the Mini dealership (the same one that fixed my car - there are only 3 dealers around here) and asked to see the S.

The guy told me "this is not a car for you... it's too small... it's too expensive... you should be looking at other brands..." My wife and I left with a WTF look on our faces. We bought a Clio Sport.

Fast forward to 2009. Went to another dealer while looking for my current car. He says "these are expensive cars - insurance is high, and the cost of replacing the brake pads is around $700 - are you sure you want one?"

Maybe I look far too poor to own a MINI. :D