I'm a Mazda RX-8 owner. I love my car, but it's not the most reliable car. It's having trouble starting recently and as it's almost 5 years old my wife and I thought it might be time to look at a new car.
I've always liked the MINI and the more I read about them the more I think I would like them for their fun to drive factor. However, I've also been reading a tremendous amount of negative articles about their reliability. The most recent Consumer Reports magazine shows the MINI as having below average "Predicted Reliability." I understand that this is just "predictive" number crunching, but it comes from somewhere. Apparently a lot of it might come from people like those posting at this consumer complaints website:
Consumer complaints about Mini Cooper This site alone shows 29 pages of customers reporting failed clutches not covered under warranty in the first year of ownership, blown engines, trim falling off as they drive them off the lot, tons of failed CVT boxes not covered under warranty etc, etc. This all has me wondering how this car is still on the road let alone listed on Kelly Blue Book as being one of the top ten cars for holding their resale value!
Now I know that anything before 2003 should be considered a MINI beta car and they are horribly unreliable (from what I've read) but I'm reading about brand new 2007+ MINIs and it seems they're just as bad.
I'm a Mac user, I'm guilty of drinking the kool aid from time to time where I defend a Mac even though it's at fault for something. I get the cult thing. Is this car that iconic that people who buy them just overlook all of these major problems? Or am I reading a collection of faults that reflect only a small percentage of the overall MINI community?
I know I can just buy a Honda Civic and be sure it'll start every day without trim falling off or the transmission falling out for years on end, but the MINI sounds so damned fun!
Thanks
