[deirdre]

I posted this in the MINI.com Owner's Lounge.

Also, I was charged $1,000 for rally lights - one of 3 dealer packages, a canvas bag of junk (cute junk but still stuff like a pen for this money) for $500, rally lights for $1K, or the 6 disk for $1K...anyway:

"Just wanted to post about my experience to save some folks a headache. Most everyone in here must have already placed their order, but if friends are interested in your car, as every one of mine has been, you might save them these problems.

We bought our beloved MINI from the dealership in Annapolis, MD. If you have a choice, as we did with the Sterling, VA location, I would seriously suggest exploring it.

We ordered our car in June. It arrived promptly in October. We went to the dealership and went through the purchasing process. Small complaints are that we weren't offered little things like the free CD or told about the options like daytime running lights, or hatch pop. We loaded our car, spent quite a lot, and still felt rushed and uncared for, but were thrilled to have our new car after many months. Maybe they count on this, but as importnat as aftercare is in the auto market...

Anyway, the dealership offered to register our car. We agreed. 6 weeks into our 8 weeks of temporary tags, I called the dealership to find out where our plates were. I was told that they were unable to register the car because one of us had a VA license (where the car lives) and one of us a DC license. The VA license was fine, the DC license was a problem. I spoke with the titling office which confirmed this but also told me that they had told our rep in the dealership this immediately (back in October). Now, we had only two weeks to register our car.

Having to go to the dreaded DMV would have been bad enough but we were waiting for a FedEx from the dealership with our Certificate of Origin which never arrived. Apparently, the rep hadn't checked her voice mail and retrieved our new address. She'd sent it to our old address and FedEx had left it there without a signature. It was lost.

By now, we could no longer drive the new car. Our temporary tags had expired. After a couple of weeks and many phone calls, we received a duplicate Certificate of Origin from the dealership. In the meantime, we had gone to the DMV (3 hour wait!) and converted the DC license to a VA license, so they could have registered the car for us. We asked the dealership to do this. They refused!!

We took it to the DMV where they pointed out that the dealership had neglected to attach the $700+ check required for registration which we'd paid them. Uh huh...So, after a 2nd three hour wait, we went home very dejected and called the dealership.

Eventually, we got the check, but only after we couldn't drive the car for a solid month. Here's what I'm thinking:

1. The dealership should have known immediately that they couldn't register the car for the DC license and had us do it.

2. When the titling office told our rep that she couldn't do it, our rep should have called us immediately. Instead, she never called. I had to call her looking for our plates which would never have come.

3. Our rep should check her voicemail. Not sending the paperwork to the right address put us into a period where we could no longer drive the beloved car.

4. They should have registered the car for us when they received duplicate paperwork and we had two VA licenses.

5. They should have remembered to send the check!

6. They had asked us outright for a good rating on the questionnaire MINI is supposed to send out. We never received the questionnaire (did anyone else?), but intend to request one.

Totals:
-5 hours at the DMV not including the 3 hour visit to convert the license.
-Many more hours on the phone with the dealership.
-One month of no MINI driving, no loaner and refusal to renew the temporary tags.

I really hope you all had happy experiences and don't intend to use this forum to gripe, but wanted to warn you all about this terrible experience.

Take care!"