Don't buy a Mini Cooper

It has been a nightmare for me with MINI COOPER IRVINE. The sales and service department managers should rethink their approach to customers. I took my 2010 Mini Cooper in for an engine light issue. Let me just be clear, I have taken very good care of this car. Oil changes and service on a regular basis. It had just passed a SMOG check a few days before the engine light came on. The service department changed/replaced the Vanos solenoid (for $600.00). A few days later the engine light came on again. They recommended an engine tear down for $6000.00+ to see if they could find out what was wrong with the engine. Mind you, I brought it in for an idle/misfire problem. I declined that for two reasons; #1 it was way to much money for me and #2 they could not say it would fix the problem. So in the end they did not fix my car or even tell me what the problem is and or how to fix it. The last recommendation from the service department was to buy a new engine (because it might be cheaper than the tear down). Hard to believe that an ‘ENGINEERING’ company cannot fix their own car engines. So now I have a car that I can’t reliably use or sell because of this problem.

After researching this problem on the internet, I have found that this is a known issue with Mini Cooper engines. In fact, the company changed engines and the company that was building them because they were problematic. I called the corporate office and spoke with them regarding this issue and was told that I could get another opinion and that they would take it under consideration. I did and went back to Irvine Mini and was told that they would still need to tear down engine.

As for sales, after this service issue was over, (from the service department point of view) I was sent many emails from Wes Nicolay for special offers to buy or lease a new Mini Cooper. Seems the answer is we can’t fix your car so why not just buy a new one. I did make an appointment with Wes. Never did get to speak with him.

While on a test drive with a sales rep I expressed my concerns about the misfire issue. I was told not to worry that the engines and the company that made them have been replaced with new and better engines. So, when I got home I researched the engine light, misfire issue for my Mini Cooper online and found out it is apparently a known issue to the company, the service department(s) and many, many other Mini Cooper owners. Just, type misfire and Mini Cooper on your browser, hit enter and you will find many links that address the engine light and misfire issue.

It is sad that Mini Cooper Corporate has not compensated customers for this issue. It appears Mini Cooper just decided to change the engine to the new ones used today instead of addressing the real problem. Anyway it’s very disappointing, I really loved my Mini Cooper! Thought I could do better by communicating with the company. Apparently, I was wrong.

I believe that a class action suit is warranted and should be initiated at some point.