Hello everyone, I have owned a 2003 MCS, for 11 months and last friday I was driving around in Santa Barbara, CA and i started to feel a thumping noise coming from the driver side front wheel, so I stoped the car to see what was wrong. Well it turned out that the wheel nuts were loose so i took care of the problem, so I keep on driving after that, later that day a louder noise developed every time i applied the brakes, it sounded like metal to metal up against each other. so i pulled over and called road assistance, they sent a flatbed to pick up the car and take it to the closes dealer, the closes dealer is 65 miles south of Santa Barbara in Calabasas near LA. well my car has been at the dealer since last friday and I hadn't heard anything from the dealership so I caaled on Monday afternoon, the service department did not know about my car. well then they called me and said that they found it and that they will call me later, so i waited and waited and finaly i had to call them to find out what was going on with my car, the service rep. told me that on tuesday they would have a look, because they were busy so i said to him to please let me know asap how long it would take to fix whatever was wrong with my mini because i needed to make plans and find someone to drive me there. He then did not call, so i got on the phone and talked to the dealer manager, The manager, a lady was very nice and told me that she would look into it and find out what was going on, and that she would have the service manager give me a called, well 3 hours later he called and to my surprice he told me that they did not have mini techs because BMW did not offered enough training for dealer in their area, that due to that they had only one mechanic available to take care of all the minis that came into their dealer to be serviced, so therefore it could take up to a week before they could even take a look to what could be wrong with my Mini. He was very sorry, but there was nothing they couold do 'till BMW offers more training for their mechanics aso they can take care of the minis that need service. The dealer is Bob Smith Mini in Calabasas, California. Has anyone has had this kind of pronblem with dealerships don't having mechanics to do repair work on Minis? Please post your comments, I am so disappointed, this is my second Mini Cooper S in two years and I was not aware that BMW was not trainig enough mechanis to keep up with the sales and demand of minis in US. Thanks for any comments!

 

 

amilgarcia,

Unfortunately, your experience is more the norm than the exception for Southern California MINI dealers. For some reason, BMW has an absolutely horrible standard for customer service in this region.

I could excuse one or possibly two bad experiences but I have been to several dealers several times now and have been utterly disgusted with the lousy customer service. I guess when you have people lining up to buy your cars and they're willing to pay thousands over MSRP, you can afford to have an arrogant, uncaring, attitude about customer satisfaction.

You can contact MINI USA and they will go through the motions of trying to help resolve your problems but they will end up having little real effect.

Welcome to the MINI ownership experience in Southern California -- take it or leave it.

 

unbelievable! Correct me if I'm wrong,but I thought the whole strategy for the launching of this marque was that Minis were to be sold by mini - only dealerships.That BMW dealerships were offered the opportunity first is a no brainer,my own dealership, Mini peabody is closely aleigned with North shore BMW, but they are physically several miles apart.From time to time I see BMW's up on the lifts at the mini dealership,but never the other way around.MiniUSA DOES monitor this site,I know this from first hand experience,so maybe your post will catch their eye.If not, the sqeeky wheel definately gets the grease ,so start being a fly in the ointment and keep asking to speak to the BOSS'S BOSS'S BOSS!Good luck and welcome to NAM!

 

Well it certanly is very upseting to me specialy after purchasing TWO MCS in TWO years, I would like to be able to take my car into service and at least get an answer on how long it is going to take for my car to be looked at and have a mechanic or service person to tell me "hey this is whats wrong and it will take us X days to fix it",but no the responce from the SERVICE MANAGER was totally unacceptable "WE DO NOT HAVE MECHANICS TO LOOK AT MINIS DUE TO LACK OF TRAINING FROM BMW" well I guess this will be my last MCS 'till BMW turns around and does something about service and training!

:evil:

 

Does anyone wants to buy it? 2003 MCS, loaded except Cold weather package and GPS. Blue, blue top, leather, 17 In. run flats, 7600 Miles driving ligths, steering wheel under carriage protection, cd changer. mint conditions. post if interested, Santa barbara, Calif. locations.

 

It’s kind of like that here in Detroit too. They only had one guy for a long time. I think they have a few more now, but are still slow. They are trying to make it better, but I have found that it is hard to reach them at any give time on the phone and it does take a few hours most times to hear back from them. All phone call should be returned in 30 min. or less when running any business.

As for your luck I would try another dealer in that area. I know there are three mini dealers in that area of LA and one of them should be able to help you out better. Good luck with it, but I would not sell the car that makes you happy just because of poor service. I can almost guaranty that good service from any dealer ship be it ford, gm, Honda, ect... will be hit and miss also. Some dealers are good and some are bad and it happens in any car line. All you can do it deal with it and try to make it the best you can. In the end I want to drive the car that put the smile on my face. Even if I know more than the dealer does.

 

BMW seems to have severely understaffed themselves with MINI techs...

 

hey, i just read about your experience with bobsmithmini. i took my car to them for its 10,000 service and as nice as they were they seemed to be really checked out. i knew more about the car than the service advisor. you can read the rest of my critique in the dealer rating system section. please put your remarks in their also as i think that mini division does read the ratings. i am not going to sell my mini but i am going to use an independent mechanic for everything other than warranty requirements. the southern california mini experience is really a drag, starting first with the markup over mrsp. in the future i am going to plan for a weekend in san francisco for my next required service. drop the car at pleasanton, take the train to the city. in the meantime we all have to keep bmw informed. i hope you change your mind and keep the car....

 

Well my mini is sold, i just came to a point where I do not have the time to deal with the unwillingness of the dealerships to care about costumer satisfaction, it just does not exist in any of the Mini dealers I dealed with in this latest experiance i went trhu. i may give Mini another chance in a few years, when the mini brand is not seen by BMW Corp. as a step child! of the BMW Brand. I am very sad to have done this, but i o not have the time of the energy to be calling and waiting and calling and waiting with results. I wishh everyone in this forum good luck, and hope noone has to go thru this frustration. bye for now.

Amil garcia
dissappointed Ex-Mini Owner! :???:

 

Sorry to learn that BMW's arrogance and careless customer service has led to yet another casualty.

One of these days, the High Mucky Mucks at BMW will learn the importance of customer satisfaction. Until then (and until they dispose of Bangle), they will remain in a death spiral.