Was gonna say, i work for BMW/MINI in London (kentish town) if you wanted me to have a look i can.

Cheers for the offer- Ketish Town too North of the river for me!

Just joking- managed to get my local mechanic to have a look- as predicted a small bonding issue which he has hopefully sorted.

Annoyingly I've managed to get a nice deep chip in one of the wings. Believe it or not, I was sitting in traffic under a bridge when a piece of debris fell from the bridge and hit the wing. Couldnt stop and find the offending debris because of the traffic.

Having a bad run of luck.

Right another update about the Mini.. :mad::mad::mad::mad:

Friday the CEL comes on.. so i take it up to the dealer for what must be the 7th time in the last few months (remember the car was new in June 2009) turns out a sensor on the inlet cam had stuck so its got to be replaced, they fixed it for now and cleared the CEL but said that it will have to go in again to get the sensor replaced just to be sure.

So now here is the list of things that have gone wrong and how many times it has gone in to have them looked at

Stop/Start function went faulty about 3-4 months ago and they "fixed it" for it to go wrong again, since then it has been in 3 times for this fault and finally on the last visit it has been sucessfully fixed.

The leaking windscreen, once when i just dropped it on they looked at it, then they had it for 3 days trying to find the leak then they had it for a further 2 days when they were having the screen re-bonded.

Now with this CEL issue its had to go in briefly saturday and its going to have to go back in for the sensor to be replaced.

Granted some of the issues were looked at during the same visit but i think it must be a total of 7 times its been in..

What do you all think?? i am tempted to say that the vehicle is not fit for purpose as it has been in nearly once a week/fortnight for the last couple of months and i am getting fed up with taking it in.

Going to see the dealers General Manager tomorrow to see what he has got to say on the whole situation..

Lee

Hi Lee,
Sorry to hear of the problems you are encountering.
I'll see if i can help you on here.....

A. Start stop.

This is a very sensetive system which has many factors that control it.
Situatuions such as, low battery voltage (they have a smart charge system which only charges the battery when it's needed, so the voltage can become slightly low when heated rear screen is on, radio, wipers, lights all at the same time.)
2. External temp (any temp below 3 degrees celcius)
3. Removing the seat belt when the engine is running or opening the door)
4. Resting your hand on the gear lever (the car has to know it is 100% in neutral in order to stop the engine)
5. Reduced brake vacuum (this will start up the engine with out you pressing the clutch is the vacuum level gets too low due to the pedal being pumped whilst the engine is off)

These are about 75% of the factors that control the start/stop system. There actaully may not be a fault with the car, it may just be an external influence causing it to stop working for a while.

The dealer (if they have techs with brains) will be able to access the start/stop inhibitors (also known as blocks) using their diagnosis system to see if it is indeed a fault or not. However this is if they understand how it works!!

B. Camshaft fault.

We had a few of the inlet cam sensors go wrong on these cars. (due to poor manufacture of the parts supplier, not MINI themselves) Granted it's annoying, however this is literally a ten minute job to replace. The fact that they are saying the sensor is stuck is horse poo and worries me about the dealers ability- it's a hall sensor that uses electromagnetism to work, there is no moving part in the sensor itself, just a turning reference wheel connected to the cam!

C. The windsreen issue

Well this is just bad luck and we have previously been over the topic.

Unfortunately, the dealer will argue that all of the above does not make the car unfit for it's purpose. It is still usable and drives blah blah blah (at the end of the day they don't want to be buying back the car!)
They have three attempts at fixing the SAME FAULT before you legally are allowed to force them to refund you the current forecourt value of you car in it's used condition.

Think you've just had alot of bad luck mate, hopefully they will sort it and you'll be back to happy motoring! :D

Kind regards
Matt. :)

Hi Matt,

Cheers for that, its good to actually see the conditions that need to be met for the stop start function to work..

I have been up to the Garage today in my linch to have a "chat" with the General Manager and i must say he was rather sympathetic to my situation and was not happy to hear how i had been treated by the service manager.

But hey they are going to sort it and should be back to 100% next Monday when they fit the new sensor.

Matt i dont suppose your able to let me know what is replaced in the 1st annual service as they are going to charge me £225 for what i think is just to check lights and levels and change the oil and filter (the car will have done maybe 2500 miles)

Just i am thinking of buying the Mini Parts and getting it all done myself rather than pay them £100 per hour for what could be poor service.

Cheers again,
Lee

Hi Lee, nice to see a service manager taking charge for once!! MINI are very customer service based at the moment (BMW are trying to improve customer experience across the board!)

With regards to the service...

The car doesn't have an annual service per say. It has a condition based service (CBS) I'm assuming it's the vehicle check service you need (picture of a car on a ramp displayed in the clock in front of the steering wheel) If it's that, then no parts are required. They just check the tyres, suspension, fault memories, battery, lights, levels, brake effectiveness. Basically just a good going over, as replaceables are gauged on the cbs data (oil, air filter, spark plugs, brake pads, brake fluid, microfilter)

Hope that's what you mean! :freak3:

Matt :D

hi Matt,

Yes thats the type it will be but im sure the oil and filter will be done etc etc like normal service parts just because its been in thee a year now and were only on an island so it doesnt last as well because of the salty air from the sea..

But it was actually the General Manager that i saw because the Service manager was not giving the service he should have been.. so i also sent him an email saying that i think that as a good will gesture that he should consider giving the first service for free and he went with it so the missus will be saving just over £200 which is good..

Will see what they say next monday when they pick the car up to replace the sensor as to what they have done but i suspect that they will just say here you go its done now..

If i needed to get hold of some parts do you think you could get me a price on them? as i dont want to deal with the dealers more than i need to, its just i have scuffed the nearside mirror cover and think it will be cheaper to replace it rather than have ot resprayed as they look easy to change..

Cheers,
Lee

Oh Matthew you absolute bean! Just threw away a perfect pair of black mirror caps! (replaced with the carbon fiber ones!) i'll have a look in the workshop tommorow morning.

They are easy to replace provided you take the mirror glass of gently as it can break!

Yeah i can get any price you need, as long as i have the last seven digits of your chassis number (pm me it for security reasons) so i can look up the correct bits for your specific model.
Matt :D

Success! Managed to find the cap you need, it's in gloss black. (the black all mini mirror caps come in) Drop me a pm mate.