I love my car. It’s an adorable Mini Clubman. It’s the right size (though a little daunted by the unplowed roads) and the right amount of zip for me.
However… I’m approaching the end of my rope with my car and my car dealer.
I cannot in good conscience recommend Minis anymore. Sorry.
Last year, I spent multiple visits to the dealer getting things fixed or installed that shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place.
Today, I asked them to actually diagnose the problem that has blown a rear speaker twice. They installed the 3rd speaker in 14 months and failed to find an actual problem. But did jokingly tell me to turn down my bass. Uh huh.
Oh and they got to replace my gorgeous chrome hood scoop, a splurge when I ordered the car, because the bloody chrome was peeling off the bloody scoop. “Defective” was the note on the invoice. And now, it shouldn’t happen again they promise me. Uh huh.
All this work was done under warranty at least.
I did get a loaner car at least. The free dealer loaner was one of the nice features of buying the Mini. Of course, this morning it was not a feature. After pointing out to the service guy the puddle of ice water and slush making their entrance hazardous to say the least, I then stood in the cold (well, only 30°) and wind while the service guy futzed to find me a car with gas. This was apparently a huge challenge because the car I ended up with barely has a couple gallons. And I wonder if they knew the engine service light is on. Plus it was out of windshield washer fluid. I’d like to say “you get what you pay for” in this case but I really don’t feel like I got what I paid for with my Clubman at all, free loaner or not.
So let’s invoice the day in car ownership:
- Warranty repair but no diagnosis of problem that keeps blowing my rear speaker.
- Warranty replacement of the defective chrome hood scoop.
- Free dealer loaner for the day with very little gas (the warning light came on), no windshield washer fluid in the middle of a messy winter month, and the service light on. Good thing I didn’t have to commute into the City. At least the car was clean and only smelled faintly of cigarette smoke.
And all this is *after* Mini Corporate support got involved when I complained about the service in December.
It’s been a bunch of little things that have gone wrong with this car, some of which have been directly related to the dealer’s inattention to their job, but I didn’t have this many problems with my Subaru in 11 years. I’m lucky that very few have been safety-related but is that next problem that will come up? I’m annoyed because I don’t have much choice but to buy the extended warranty for this car because it’ll be cheaper than the intermittent repair of future defects that haven’t had time to surface because I only have 9000 miles on the car. Anyone know a good lawyer with Lemon Law experience?
ETA: I feel stupid complaining about little stuff like this, but I had hoped to keep this car as long or longer than my previous car. I just don’t know that it will happen now.