Hi, new owner of a used (2007 R56) Mini here.

Bought the Mini from a BMW dealership less than a month ago with roughly 22k miles on it.

Now, about 1000 miles later it is sitting in a Mini dealership with the sad remnants of it's clutch on a workbench.

I'm not sure what my best course of action is at this point. I know that I didn't drive it hard, but of course can't assert that the previous owner (only one owner) didn't either - although the sheer amount of damage would be impressive to rack up in such a short time.

Naturally I'm being denied warranty coverage from the Mini dealership since there isn't clear evidence that it wasn't user error. That's fine, and I'll call up Mini customer service tomorrow. However, what really gets me is that one would think that this type of problem should have been discovered/fixed at the dealership level before I bought it - I'd understand if I bought it from a private party, but not from a dealership.

Anyway, here's the pictures - please let me know if you have any suggestions on how I should pursue this, preferably without me being out of pocket $3100 at the end of the day!

Regards,

Terminal

 

And one final picture.

 

This is a typical ploy from MINI. Search and you will find many threads/posts on the "MINI Will Not Warranty My Clutch" complaint even at low miles like 7K. If you fight with them then they will probably cover it.

If you have only had the car for a month, how many miles have you put on it? This could be a very big help in getting them to repair it as what you said about the "It should have been caught in the inspection before sale" is very true.

Good luck with the fight.

 

Keep in mind that the clutch is covered under the 3yr/36k mile maint program. Though they would claim the same thing, "User abuse" if it didn't look like normal wear and tear. But it is true if the car has only been yours a month it something the dealer "should" take care of.

 

dealer said to me that they routinely denie warranty claims under 30,000 miles. because of user error, i wish you luck!

 

I've put about 1000 miles on the vehicle since purchasing.

 

Unless you were drag racing or had no idea how to use a clutch i would say it would be near impossible for you to do that sort of damage.

 

I would really go for the "It should have been fixed before the dealership sold the car" as you have put very few miles on the car yourself.

Good Luck.

 

As an update I have contacted all three parties (Mini USA, the dealership I purchased from, and the Mini dealership where it's getting repaired), and have them talking to each other.

Going to see what happens this coming week, hopefully it will be good news!

 

To me the pics make it look like the clutch just came apart. It doesn't look discolored like you burnt it up. Stick to your guns, they should warranty it.

 

As a follow-up MiniUSA ended up doing nothing for this.

Ultimately the BMW dealership I purchased it from stepped in and covered all but $600 of the cost of the repair, so while I'm still out some money it's not as bad as it could be.

Ultimate lesson learned : never ever buy a used manual transmission car.

 

Are you sure about that? I've read dozens of clutch related threads over the years and the impression I've gotten is that it's not considered a routine maintenance item like brakes.

 

The clutch shouldn't be covered under the warranty maintenance program. As you stated, it covers brakes, oil services, microfilters, wipers, etc. but not the clutch. The clutch *should* be covered under the 4 year/50k warranty if it absolutely wasn't user error. For what it's worth, I've seen a lot of clutches that are covered under warranty - moreso than ones being 'abused' causing the customer to pay for it. That's my 2 cents and I'm sticking to it!

 

Very surprised they didnt take care of it, i've seen them replaced just as bad under warranty. I take it you did a whole new flywheel as well??

 

Yes I did. Frankly I'm disappointed in Mini USA, they did absolutely nothing.

And while the Mini is a nice car, when it's not in getting serviced again and again, I'm sure not buying another one.

 

So just to get this straight, the clutch went from completely normal to completely trashed in 1,000 miles? I'm not saying that this definitely shouldn't have been a warrantied deal, I'm just trying to get the story straight. If what I just stated is true, and it went from fine to trashed in 1,000 miles, then I can understand why it was denied. If was a faulty part that went kaboom and you just got the raw end of the stick, then I don't understand why they wouldn't have warrantied it. You'd think the dealership would've noticed if the car was acting even remotely strange when they inspected it/serviced it before they sold it to you. I've only been in a few cars where the clutches were 'going out' and it was noticeable for >1000 miles (yes, I have lazy friends that sometimes don't take care of their autos).

Either way, I'm sorry to hear about your bad luck - better luck next time, I hope.

 

If that's the case, your dealer is an arsewipe

 

Since the 4 year/50K bumper-to-bumper is transferable from one owner to another, MINI should have covered this one fully. They know these clutches and flywheels have spotty reliability records at best. But if y're only out $600 on a $3100 repair I guess that's acceptable.

Lesson to be learned here: buy a used MINI from a MINI dealer. MINI-Next are certified pre-owned and, in many cases, have a better warranty than OEM. Buy used from a non-MINI dealer = huge risk.

And Terminal check to make sure there's a warranty on your new clutch and flywheel. Should be 2 years parts and labor, and that can extend beyond expiration of the 4/50.

 

I have to disagree with you on this one. I've only had one clutch "go bad", but it went from normal operation to slipping and then non-functioning over the course of just a week or so. This was many years ago on a Nissan, but I certainly didn't have months of warning.

Based on my own experience a clutch that appears to be working normally can certainly fail in under 1,000 miles.

 

Hell, MINI clutches can fail on a drop of a pin, let alone in less than 1K.

 

I predict clutch issues on my mini in the future. After two months I only have 600 miles on my mini. I already have a strange resistance when putting it into 1st gear. I just couldn't imagine this resistance is normal. And no, I am not jamming it too far to the left near reverse. We shall see.

As for the OP, I would have assumed the dealer would have covered this.

 

The dealer should have covered it for sure. There have been a bunch of threads just like this: car about a year or 2 old (7k miles once), clutch goes out fast, they say "you abused it". Then they post, we say get Mini Usa involved and they never do jack. Usually the owner has to get all over the service manager and sometimes lawyer up and they eventually fix it under warranty. I never heard of them bargaining for $600 before. IMO that's pretty much admitting it wasn't the owners' fault and just trying to jack him for some money. Poor quality service IMO. Ditch that dealer if you at all can.

 

It never was completely normal from the time that I purchased it. I in my ignorance assumed that the little slipping under hard acceleration was a function of the traction control more than anything else.

As for the comments regarding the dealership I purchased it from it's worth reiterating that I purchased it from a BMW dealership as a used vehicle. If they wanted too they didn't have to do anything at all, they at least stepped up to the plate.

The thing that confuses me the most is that the commonly cited reason the clutch wouldn't be considered under warranty was that it had a bit of bluing on it from heat. I finally figured out the clutch was having problems when it started slipping at high loads on the interstate - the first couple of times reaching almost redline.

This would cause a lot of heat, and probably the bluing. Therefore I was pretty much screwed at that point since the slipping of the failed clutch caused what they saw as clutch abuse.

 

This makes my head explode.

I'd fight them tooth-and-nail to cover this. The car is under warranty, the clutch is bad. Period/end of story. The onus should be on THEM to prove that it's been abused - and there's no way they can. And as was pointed out, it appears that its condition may indicate that it "fell apart" as opposed to showing signs of abusive driving. There are enough posts in these forums about premature clutch failures to convince me that the Luk clutches that Mini is putting in our cars are garbage. And without a doubt, Mini knows this, as the high volume of warranty claims (and denials) must clearly indicate this to them.

Please tell me that the $3100 figure you tossed out earlier was not the quoted cost for a clutch job? If so, that's complete, utter, highway robbery. For that they should include an all-expenses-paid week in Hawaii for 2, and 3 days at Caesar's Palace in Vegas. And throw in a reach-around.

 

I estimate that whatever Mini quotes you on a repair can get done elsewhere for half of that ($1600 for the clutch). They just rape you because they think you're stupid and can afford it because you bought a car there in the first place. There's probably not a lot of people that fix Minis either, unlike more popular makes of cars.