First Scheduled Maintenance for my Cooper

[ayulove]

I brought my cooper (2004 model) for her first scheduled maintenance. At first I thought it was covered by the 4 years warranty. It turns out it's not and the labor cost is so expensive. I brought my car to Mini Markham (Toronto), and it's $107 (+Tax) per hour. I wanted to know if all the authorized Mini dealer charges the same for labor cost, and if the first maintenance amount should be $210? According to my indicator, the next scheduled maintenance is at 40000 km, which is a very long period away. Should I bring in my car for the second check up earlier than that, or I should follow the indicator? Please advise, thank you.

[jambo101]

Its the dealers way of making extra money,you have to bring your car in every once in a while for a $200 oil change or your warranty will be voided,yeah its a total ripoff but thats the way it works.

[drew330]

Mini Markham is charging way too much. You should give Mini woodbridge a call, I remember they quoted me $130.

[Cooper76]

Huh? What is the warranty like for MINICA? Don't you guys get free scheduled maintenance?

[Rennie]

I was wondering the same thing.

[MiniByblos]

Are you saying US owners are getting free scheduled maintenance?

That hardly seems fair!

[Rennie]

Quote: Originally Posted by MiniByblos

Are you saying US owners are getting free scheduled maintenance?

That hardly seems fair!

Uh oh! Caught!

[MarkV]

Yes, US customers get 3 years scheduled maintenance "free".

In the UK they have the option to pay $250 cdn upfront for 5 years service. We get to be ripped off along the way......

Another piece of trivia to consider with the above: At current exchange rates a 2005 Cooper S with roughly the same specification in each country costs the following in Canadian $ (rounded up for simplicity)

US: $28000
CANADA: $32000
UK: $35000

At least we are not paying UK prices I guess despite our service costs.

[luVlee]

freckin basturds...instead of thanking us for drving their cars, they rip us off...

[Cooper76]

Quote: Originally Posted by luVlee

freckin basturds...instead of thanking us for drving their cars, they rip us off...

I'll gladly pay more for my MINI if you move Calgary here and we can ship Detroit over to you. Oh, and one other thing, we keep the Red Wings.

Heh heh heh...(bloody Flames....)

[luVlee]

you like calgary? omg..horrible...its' the boringest city ever.. older folks say it's a good city..yes that's true..but if you're 18 like me..it's really boring.

And...GO FLAMES GO~~~you should have seen the Red Mile on 17th when they were on finals..damn that was fun.

[DarkMiniCooperS]

US customers get free services but they don't have Xenon lights as a stock feature...

Free services are good for only 80000km but Xenon will still be there after that! I'd rather get free Xenon than free services!

[MarkV]

I included the cost of Xenon lights on the US car in the above comparison. We are paying plenty more for our "free" higher base spec.

Don't get me wrong....its worth it to drive a MINI.....just a little irritating!

Back to the service issue, I'm at 14400km with 4400km to go on the service indicator. At the current rate of countdown it seems I will be around 19000-19500 for my first service. Then I will find out how much the new MINI Windsor franchise charges.

[Myk]

Dealerships CAN NOT void your warranty if you do not take it in for scheduled maintanence.

You should have a book or leaflet indicating all scheduled maintanence periods and what is done at each interval. Look at each schedule carefully, if you do not understand something or do not get why a perticular visit is so expensive, ask a service person to go through it with you.

This is not just a Mini thing, allot of the dealership service, prices and what they expect you to do is rediculous.