Update - After drawing attention to my problem I got excellent service from Mini of the Woodlands. It turns out that the car was not performing after the service, not because I needed to do an out-of-warranty fuel injection cleaning, but because yet another ignition coil had broken (#1 this time, at 35,020 miles). They wisely decided to replace the remaining two original coils, so I now have four new coils and the car has never run better! So now I am amending my review: Yay! Mini of the Woodlands! Boo! Mini and BMW for putting out a car that would have two injection coils go out at 35,000 miles. We've owned 2 Toyotas, 2 Hondas, 2 Acuras, three of them bought used, for over 125,000 miles, and never had to do anything than put gas, change oil, and do regular maintenance. The only experience that compares are our two Ford Escorts, 1984 and 1985, that we bought in college at about 70,000 miles, and had to pray that they'd not stall at every traffic light. Now I understand why our friends with BMW's are in the shop all the time (seriously, people?). Unless you really have a thing for waiting for service in car dealerships, or brag to your friends about owning a german car, or you have waaaaay too much free time, the germans are not worth the extra hassle. It is a big world, explore your options. ---------------------------------------------------- Ugly experience with Mini of the Woodlands today. Really poor customer service and a tremendous hit to customer loyalty. Bought a certified, pre-owned 2012 Mini Cooper S last July (2015) with 29,306 miles, with a good 70,000 miles remaining on its 100,000 mi/ 6 yr/ free maintenance service warranty. Brought it back in July 2016 - with only 4,000 miles for the year - did scheduled free maintenance, no problems mentioned. Yesterday (Oct 3 2016), all check engine lights go on, car cuts out, bumbling, barely driveable. Took it to the nearest repair shop, hooked it up to diagnostics for $100. Errors read: "2EFE-combustion misfires", "2EE1-Damaging converter", "2EE2-cylinders damaging converters severely", and "2EF0-cylinder 4 damaging exhaust gas afterstart sequence". Technician told us that this looks like an ignition coil failure, which resulted in severe coking all over - everything looked pretty gunked up as an obvious result- which will require full fuel injector service, flushing and removing all deposits, all for $875. Thinking that we actually bought a warranty , we took it to the dealership today (Oct 4). Indeed, they acknowledged the broken ignition coil #4, which would be replaced under warranty. But, guess what, they were also inspired to suggest some regular maintenance, let's say, full fuel injection service, because everything was pretty gunked up. And guess what? This was NOT covered under warranty, because it is regular maintenance. Obviously we confronted them with the fact that this was a result of the coil breaking and not regular wear and tear, and should therefore be covered by warranty. Their response was that this was damage over the 34,000 miles of the life of the car, previous owner putting in cheap supermarket gas, etc. (Recommended maintenance: 30,000 miles!!!) Declined the inspired fuel injection service intending to do it with my local guy, take the car home, guess what? Terrible performance, car not accelerating, stalling when too much is required. 2 miles on the 35 mile way, while going up a Texas overpass, car stalls, check engine light goes right back on. Able to drive only on manual 3rd gear. Is this a scam to get me to pay for the fuel injection cleaning? Is it a #lemon? Did they sell us a car with known problems? Is it a #scam? Do they want us to pay for the fuel injection cleaning, otherwise car performance will be lousy? Who knows. Decided to take it back up to the Woodlands the next day, while writing to the parent company (Autonation), MiniUSA, BMWUSA, and Twitter-shaming all of them
Stella Korre
Oct 13, 2016
