Princeton MINI service experience

[RBEmerson]

After my problems with securing an ECU programming update through Don Rosen (described elsewhere in this forum), I made an appointment with Rich at Princeton MINI. While there's no way to know, as of this writing, if the ECU update has cleared the cold start problem (the car's still hot from a 50 mile drive, after all), almost everything else went well. I was met at the service entrance (signs at the entrance to the dealership lot helped me find where to go) by a valet who directed me to the service desk. Rich remembered my call and appointment, wrote up the ECU warranty work and had no problem adding ICE option programming and an oil change to the work order. He had a printed list of ICE options and said "check what you want". The work was finished up in a reasonable amount of time (90 minutes with 30-45 minutes budgeted for the ECU work). The sole wrinkle in the visit showed up at the end. It took about 30 minutes to get the car back after the bill was closed. As best I can tell, the car wash was backed up (Good News: Princeton washes the car inside and out - Bad News: it's been pouring rain all day - didn't much matter about the exterior although I was happy to see the inside cleaned up) and then my car was "lost" - confused with another Chili Red / White MCS. Nonetheless, at least people were willing to talk to me and tell me what was going on.

How does this experience compare with my experience with Don Rosen? The service writer at Princeton was polite and personable while the Don Rosen service writer was rude. Princeton was ready to do the requested work and had no problem accepting added work while Don Rosen couldn't do work requested when making the service appointment. I was charged .5 hr of labor for the ICE programming while the Don Rosen technician told me "tell me what you want and I'll do it on the next visit." Princeton definitely fumbled the ball on returning my car although they did wash it while Don Rosen got the car back sooner after the work (sic) was done but it wasn't washed (they had a sign saying they were not washing cars because of the ongoing draught in this area). Finally, the drive time to Princeton MINI is approximately the same as that to Don Rosen even though Princeton MINI is twice as far - one's a city drive and the other uses the Interstates.

Bottom line: I'll stick with Princeton MINI.

[S-Cooper]

purchased my car from Princeton back in May and have had nothing but problems with the service manager and getting warranty work done. There is so much irony here. Shortly after purchasing the car at Princeton I tried to buy an oil filter but was told they would not be carrying them for a while since none of their cars were near the 10K mileage.I also asked the service manager for the torque settings on the drain plug and oil filter but could never get the information. I finally had to drive to Don Rosen for the filter and the torque values. The real irony here was when you were told to put down the ICE programing you wanted. I was told , I would be charged for any programming that had not been put down on the order slip when purchasing the car. Apparently, an advantage to customers who didn't purchase their cars there.
I am not going to go on and on but hope you read the following post I had made to an owner who had his wheel trashed at Princeton this week and they refused to pay.
As for washing the car--there is irony also. I don't let them wash my car at Princeton after it was washed and handled over to me with swirl marks at delivery and later had paint rubbed off a door edge when left there for a week.
I can only hope that maybe I alone had a bad experience there and they are mending their ways. However, at the lastest show I attended there was nothing but horror stories in ref. to the service at Princeton.
If interested this was my earlier post:

http://forums.roadfly.org/mini/forum...=688981&page=1

Only more feedback and time will tell what the real Princeton service is all about.