J.D. Powers (reported by Reuters) came out with their 2011 top (and bottom) automobile reliability ratings yesterday. There were 10 cars in the best reliability category and five in the most unreliable category.

Read this and guess where the Mini finished.

 

Dead last.

 

not surprising. hopefully it puts fire under bmw's *** to start using better quality parts.

 

Old news.........someone else reported that last year.

 

Mini went from the number one spot to the bottom in one generation r-53 to r-56 .

With the r-53 having the slimmest profit margin of any prior BMW product we knew the later versions would have a bigger profit percentage but they went too far apparently .

 

That's the point... no? that once again it's dead last...

 

'German engineering' has been a great hoax after all.

 

No its the bean counters.

 

Most of the problems are engine related which can be blamed on the French as they provided the power plant from the Pequot 207gti for the r-56. Additionally as was mentioned above the bean counters really added to the problem as well.

 

Who should ever have thought that sourcing an engine from a failing company could cause such issues.....hmm.....
Any car is only as good as its weakest item.....and mini/bmw made a gamble....and lost...
Hopefully mini can recover...
But at times it feels like to compensate mini has changed to a "lifestyle" car (use your i-phone anywhere, look cool!!)...like a vw, and no longer tries to sell based upon being a genuinely good product.....many of the "drivers" have moved on....heck look at the mini modifivation market....more "dongles" , led upgrades and xenon kits kits seem to be sold to make the "look or be looked at as cool" than truly be more useful and perform better....heck...most of the "drivers" have left....when mini drivers leave for small FORD turbo Cars and say "I found what I was missing in my last car" you know mini has issues....
Maybe the ship can still be turned....but the pics of the gen3 get more yucks than cheers and just don't seem to evoke that "mini" vibe the older cars do imo....

 

BMW/MINI did the design and development with the Peugeot so they are to blame as well. The 1st gen Tritec engines was a collaboration with Chrysler and were built in Brazil. Besides MINI, Tritec motors also went into Dodge Neon, Chrysler PT Cruiser. Overall, the Tritec motors appear to be less problematic and there are many with 100k+ on NAM.

 

I had a 06 R53 with 77k and zero problems. I now have a 12 R58 JCW


with N14 motor and 20k on it, also zero problems. However with the


R58 I don't quite feel as secure as I did with the R53.

 

I just ignore JD power and treat it with the contempt it deserves. I have just sold a 2012 Alfa Romeo Mito diesel with 27,000 on- 23,000 of those I did in 8 months.. In that time it had no warranty work other than a replacement steel bracket holding the engine cover to the block which fractured when I went over a speed bump.
JD Power put the car near the bottom of its reliability chart.
The trouble is that most people responding to these surveys do very little mileage and seem to nit pick every small problem.If the car also isn't a mass seller it gives a poor score percentage wise. In the UK too many low mileage drivers buy diesel cars and then complain when the dpf gives problems.

 

From all of my research (and experience) on these cars, it seems like they are a poor choice out of warranty for someone who is uncomfortable working on their own vehicles (mostly troubleshooting), but fine for someone who can deal with that. The primary things that fail are not particularly expensive or complex to fix.

 

If you are scared of a Mini, buy a Honda and then move out of my way on the highway/track.