I'm about to go in for my 10k service (after 8.5k miles of thrashing ) and am looking for some advice on a couple of issues:

1) The 'Customer Relations Manager' at Mini of Mountain View, CA told me over the phone that Mini recommends rotating the tires, but that this is not covered under the warranty. They want $40 to do this 5 minute job!! Is it really the case that Mini recommends tire rotation but does not cover it?

2) I've also got a loud rattle in the rear that I assume is the rear latch I've read so much about on MCO. When I asked if fixing the latch involved an adjustment or replacing a part, I was told it was an adjustment only. I didn't challenge this at the time, but my understanding is that the latch mechanism needs to be replaced. Is that correct?

3) I've also got a major haunted-castle-front-door-magnitude creak in the driver's seat . I've read about this one on MCO as well. Can anyone help me direct the service guys to the fix for this, so they don't spend all day trying to track it down?

Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.

 

they replaced my hatch mechanism and it fixed it 100%, now rattle free over the last 10K miles...unfortunately it took them almost a week to figure it out, but I was one of the first guiney pigs back in the spring of 2002....insist they replace the latch...it became a common fix.

 

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>>3) I've also got a major haunted-castle-front-door-magnitude creak in the driver's seat . I've read about this one on MCO as well. Can anyone help me direct the service guys to the fix for this, so they don't spend all day trying to track it down?
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Just by chance, did you try pumping the seat up or down? I had a creak once and that's all it took to get rid of it. It's probably not it, but worth trying...

 

>>Just by chance, did you try pumping the seat up or down? I had a creak once and that's all it took to get rid of it. It's probably not it, but worth trying...

Thanks. Yes, I've adjusted the height, which can sometimes makes the problem go away for a while, but it always comes back again eventually. Probably sounds like I'm being really ****, but this creak is pretty darned load!