[scooperman_uk]

Quote: Originally Posted by salocin (original)

So impressed am I that I have delayed pick up of my MCW GP to enable them to keep the car in their showroom for a while!

A frustrating gesture!

yikes i wouldnt of.. just think of all the punters drooling over and in the MINI. all the little scratches and marks from clothing and jewelery of people getting in and out of it...

i certainly wouldnt have...

[salocin]

Quote: Originally Posted by scooperman_uk (original)

yikes i wouldnt of.. just think of all the punters drooling over and in the MINI. all the little scratches and marks from clothing and jewelery of people getting in and out of it...

i certainly wouldnt have...

Angela promised to keep it locked and under her watchfull eye! They really have been so good to me!! Don't worry me too much

Actually it suits me as we are moving house next week .. best to keep it out the way!

[TimCrighton]

CHANDLERS RUSTINGTON (WORTHING) - 9.5/10

Bought my car from them and had excellent service and customer care and would recommend them without doubt.

LIND MAIDSTONE - 9/10

Great deals on parts and really knowledgable chap on parts so thats worth a mention alone. Also ring me up now when they have special order bits not collected that I can have cheap(ish! - as much as anything from the main dealer is!), so I like that too! hehe.

WOOD, ODIHAM - 7/10

Lovely girl (Blonde and quite tall) that works in Sales, unfortunately she wasn't there when I was thinking of ordering so I went to Chandlers instead. She'd been really helpful up to that point though! Getting parts from there has been a bit of a mission though, so that holds the score down a little but still overall pretty useful!!

[salocin]

VINES REDHILL 10/10

[Simon Syddall]

Quote: Originally Posted by Simon Syddall (original)

What an excellent idea! If a database of good/bad dealers can be built up, for each country/area, the baddies will have to clean up their acts, but, more importantly, so will BMW/Mini UK, more of which later. Here goes:
SYTNER NOTTINGHAM - bad experiences years ago with my M5, Mini experience - they sold their MCS JCW demo, just before I had a test drive, not really arsed to sell me a car.
TAYLORS, BOSTON - couldn't really be bothered to sell me a £20k+ car, either.
SOPER, LINCOLN (where I went post Sytner, with M5). Really nice people - sales and service, but didn't have an MCS JCW demo car. Recommended them to my sister, who has MC on order with them.
SYCAMORE, PETERBOROUGH (1) - had a demo, David Luff - salesman absolutely excellent, MCS JCW ordered. Through no fault of Sycamore's, delivery was 8 weeks late (**** up over JCW kit going from 200 to 210), but couldn't fault Sycamore. Car perfect when delivered, service performance faultless since, though I am becoming annoyed with rattles and squeaks and suspect bearing rumble. I am worried, given BMW's poor support of their dealers, with tech backup and parts, this may take time to sort out - but again, a BMW, not dealer issue.
SYCAMORE (2) On the experience of my MCS, my girlfriend ordered a MC PL. Usual exemplary performance from David and the team, however, on delivery day, fuel pump relay ticked permanently. Delivery refused. Sycamore once again received poor backup from BMW, eventually resolved by new fuse box 6 weeks later, Sycamore having lent us their MC demo (BMW didn't seem interested in the customer).
Message which comes through, is that though dealers do seem to go above and beyond for the most part, the back up, which they are given, is a disappointment. This is the same symptom as my M5 experience with Sytner - the big "we are" and I believe, whether you are looking to spend £12k on a One or £25k on an MCS, the service should be the same as a £70k M6 - after all, it is their business to sell and maintain cars, a prerequisite of which is to keep the customer happy.
PS VICTORIA, NEWCASTLE sold my eldest daughter a used MCS. I thought that they were very pushy to start with, but they looked after her well and the car (which I didn't see prior to purchase) is excellent.
Keep up the good work - information is power!!

Thought I would update this:

Starting with Victoria, Tyneside. Bex, my daughter, wrote off the MCS. I would cite 1) inexperience 2) a rather odd mix of tyre brands and tread depths and 3) traction control unwanted interventions. I do blame Victoria directly for 2) and indirectly related to 1), in that they let her drive a MC then the MCS - which would a 23 year old chose? and then gave it the hard sell..........One thing I would say - it absolutely f***ed the poor MINI, but it looked after her - she walked away. Bless it.

By that time, I had fallen out with Sycamore, as they had grossly insulted me on the value of my MCS JCW210, against a new one. I gave them a second chance, but they blew that also. That took me back to Sopers. They were very very good. Bettered Sycamore, no prompting, first bid. Except that they didn't order the Aerokit, which then delayed delivery by 2 - 3 weeks and they tried to keep my Bullet alloys and did keep my bumpers/skirts.

I also took Bex there, who bought a PW/B 2004 MC, with Aerokit. Unfortunately, due to her new job and house move, she is having to sell it and, according to Soper, it has lost £3,340 in value in 2 months and about 2½k miles!! The f***ing robbers. No way will we be going back there!

They have also failed to diagnose/rectify an annoying drumming from my partner's MC Park Lane, including one abortive and inconvenient visit, only to find that the parts had not arrived (two hours later..........). Its the old story, if the computer can't find it, it must be OK.

Basically, all of them are charlatans. They come across as very nice, until they have got a signature and a deposit and then it all turns, well, brown. The service departments at most seem to be inept and in comfort zones, which they need shaking out of. MINI, I suspect will shaft the customer on warranties and not support the dealer, either.

Might as well catch the bus (if there was one.........................)

[The Bod]

i would like to add listerpark mini to this list,(west yorkshire)
Terrible service,first 2 delivery dates failed,so they then delivered mini cooper to my home,at which point had chip on driver's door.
Plus had 8 weeks of arguing over the settlement figure on my old car,& am still not convinced this has been settled,so this puts me off taking car back to sort out the chipped door.
Will not buy my next mini there.

[ono]

I bought 2 MINI' from Knights the second one being a Coopers S had John Cooper works fitted + a load of carbon fibre had to have a new wheel + tyre +new carbon mirror cap,so i went to them to test drive a GP cus im thinking of getting one ,well i bumped the GP and they have made me pay £500 excess ,so if anyone is a after a GP nights have number 993 and i bumped it so i hope whoever buys it gets some money off the car, goes on sale in december and they are asking £24.000 so everyone tell all the mini people that GP number 993 has been bent ! i reckon it will take some of the shine off buying an exclusive motor and i hope it takes the smile off them thieves at Knights of Staffordshire. I am now looking for a new dealer

[ttocs]

Ordered a new R56 from Barrentts of Canterbury, not yet delivered but they have been very helpful and don't mind my frequent calls to change the spec. Will update once the car arrives early Dec.

[mister.t]

Our 1st Mini adventure took us to our local dealer, Specialist Cars Stevenage, and they were very stuck up, didn't know much, and didn't even throw in a free t-shirt. Scrooges. Didn't have a Cooper on 16"s on 3 occasions, and they thought that our spec was stupid. Yes really, they told us that our spec was "rubbish" to put it politely. (So what if it was the only LY W/R W/W Red 1/2 leather made, its our Mini, not yours...) Anyway, went to Milcars Borehamwood (since named Scothall), and they were brilliant. Threw in the T-Shirt, had a Cooper on 16"s, knew what they were on about, and they were just overall much much friendlier. So there we went, had the car for a year and a half, and 3 years later, where do we go? Stevenage. Their new dealership is fantastic, their staff are very friendly, and they had a variety of cars to choose from (ironically still not one on 16"s, but we wanted 17"s, so thats OK ) They even threw in the Piano Black dashboard, which IMO is very good of them.

[boobels]

Williams Mini (Liverpool) 3 - Halliwell Jones (warrington) 0

Back in June my mini's central locking went a bit bonkers. Called mini emergency service as I couldn't lock the car and didn't want to leave it unlocked in the work car park. Turns out there was a fault with the passenger window. Called Halliwell Jones to have it booked in as an emergency and was told that it wasn't an emergency as the car was still driveable and the earliest they could fit it in was a fortnight away. CAlled Williams and they told me to bring the car in to them for them to have a look.

Took the car in, they gave me a hire car, fixed the window and found 4 other faults with the car that should have been fixed by Halliwell Jones previously. They fixed all those and washed and waxed the car for me.

Since june I have had a few warranty claims with the mini, each time Halliwell Jones have not wanted to know and each time Williams have fixed the car without fuss.

I find the attitude of the service staff at Halliwell Jones to be awful, they seem to want to get away with as little as possible. Williams on the other hand have gone out of their way to help me out several times since that first incident.

[Dazmac13]

Fairfield, Southend

Bought my first mini from their back in 2003 and is by far the WORST CAR DEALERSHIP IVE EVER COME ACROSS. Once they have got you to part with your money they couldn't care less. The after sales customer care, servicing, everything is appauling. After one week of owning the car transmission fluid was leaking so i called out the Mini emergency assisst guys who then said it was a leak and took the car to Fairfield to check it over and fix the problem. The car was given emergency status so it would be repaired asap. I drove down to the dealership 24 hours later to find the car hadn't moved from where it was dropped off. I got no phone calls of updates and no one ever returned my calls. I eventually found out Mini were ordering a new gearbox as this is what was leaking. One week later BMW rang me to say the car was ready and fixed and after all that there was nothing wrong with the gearbox, that the reason there was transmission fluid leaking was that too much fluid had been put into the car and therefore was overflowing - HOW UTTERLY RIDICULOUS THAT BMW TECHNICIANS CAN'T SPOT SOMETHING AS BASIC AS THAT!!! For 3 years I had my MC and throughout the whole time I never had my phone calls returned and just geberal crap customer service. To make matters worse a freind of mine who is the BMW part of Fairfields best customer had is brand new X5 4.8i AC schnitzer crashed into a Z4 severely by another one of the service guys

Lind, Chelmsford

Since experiencing the short comings of Fairfield's I put the very first deposit down at Lind for the new R56 MCS and they have been superb. Originally dealt with Vanessa (superb) but she sadly left. Now dealing with Adam who again has been good. Wnated the auto so sadly the order has been put back to march but not Lind's fault. So far so good, would HIGHLY RECOMMEND!!

[Parc77]

Well ive been living back in Sheffield for at least a year now, Ive had an oil service and brake fluid done under TLC.
More recently Ive had some warranty work done (sump gasket), all I can say is...there very customer focused, car is always cleaned when I get my car back, there communication is excellent and informative.
I had discovered the leak (sump gasket) and booked the car in, they had identified the leak, a squeek from behind the dash, power steering pump, power steering fan and a new engine mount and called me to let me know these would all be sorted that day under warranty...I get the feeling that when you take your car into some dealerships they would just fix the problem that you had taken the car in for and wouldnt bother with anything else. To me this was excellent service, just gave me the feeling that they were looking after the car as if it were there own.
I know its pot luck but I always seem to get a decent Mini too..Cooper Works, Cooper S.

As far as service and maintainance to the car are concerned 10/10 id recommend them.

[essexq]

fairfield mini southend
i have had my mcs for 2 years now ,which i bought from sytner bmw. 10 mins into my drive home to southend when i first bought the car i was already experiencing some problems .i contacted sytner bmw to find i could not get my car looked at untill next week and found the aftersales service very bad. with this i contacted fairfied mini who were very helpful and were able to fix the various problems straight away with also a spare car avaliable for me . i have from then always used fairfield mini and found all there staff very friendly and top marks to the service dept and helpfull mechanics.

[Alice]

What a bad day I've had! I was due to pick up my new MCS next week form Stratstone Maidenhead but found out today it had arrived at the delaer but they haven't got the spec right...............they left off the sports suspension.

So I have rejected the car and now have to decide where to order a new one from.........and of course wait another 8 weeks which is going to drive me bonkers. Why they didn't confirm in writing the spec changes I made I'll never know.

Very annoyed especially as they are the re-named Altwood of Taplow/Maidenhead that I had such a nightmare with my current Cooper. Service was terrible, never fixed anything and they even left a torch underneath my bonnet after they replaced the headlamp washers. I gave up and started taking it to Vines of Guildford who have been great.

I was going to order new MCS from Vines but their launch event was rubbish and it seemed they had lost interest in selling Minis. Went to see them today........dealership in a real mess as there is major building work going on and Mini sales have been re-located to PortaKabins.

So I have to choose between the rubbish service of Stratstone who are desperate to prove they can do it , and Vines who are further away so I would have to rely on loan cars when it goes in for warranty fixes etc. And I just hate having to pay for the insurance on the loan car when you take your car in for warranty work.....it is such a wind up when you have no choice.

A very sad and angry Alice

[Greenie1]

Avoid Lind!!!!

[Derepente]

Hello all at MINI2.
I still don't have a US spec MINI Cabrio. I had begun the process for an order on a 2007 MINI Convertible. My hope, and the rep at PCS new this, was that the 2007 upgrades to the Cooper S would also appear on the MINI Convertible. Most of you are already thinking, "not going to happen," but I had hopes... that by January when it came time to spec the car and finalize the order, it would be true.
After waiting for 3 months, I was dreading this whole process. I knew, thanks to this forums many watchful eyes, that the 2007 model was really a 2006 with minor touch ups. I didn't get cold feet, but this 07 MINI Cabrio was not the car I wanted. Shocked and determined, I wanted to cancel the order. I thought I would be forced to buy a car I didn't order in the first place.

The NEWS here is that the rep, Mr Lott, at Pentagon Car Sales was my advocate! He got my order cancelled since in all sincerity, we both thought there was a chance that the 2007 improvements would be included in the new MINI Cabrio body/engine/interior. The funny thing was that MINI Fabrication Department already sent me an email saying my MINI was in line to be built in the first week of January and I hadn't even spec'd the car yet! Weird!

Normally, these military sales agreements only get the deposit refunded for deployments or life/death matters. I was granted an exception, thanks to Mr Lott's honesty and integrity. I told him I would talk this up on the forum, as my token of appreciation. Truly, if you need help in the Kaiserslautern Area, George Lott will do his best to help you!

If anyone else, US Military, reads this, I hope you get the sense that you can do business with these guys and get the car of your dreams. My strongest advice to potential military MINI buyers is to absorb the info on this site. It truly gives you the knowledge you need and sometimes you know more than the dealers.

[redferndavid]

Dont go to Sytner Of Lecester Limited as there they havent got a level of customer care they just dont care!!

I dont want any other of the mini comunitry to have deal with what I have with there unprofessional behaviour....

[3xpt0]

Dont go to SDRIVE - Santogal Group in Portugal, Europe.

They really don't care if you have a MINI or NOT, the customer care in particular are "#$%& people.
My MINI ONE D went for a checkup and .... scratches, antenna + base broken, windshield etc etc.... Now I'm truly unhappy with the after sales service. So Portuguese people and all travelers to my country AVOID SDRIVE - SANTOGAL Group " near Porto Salvo " if you are in vacation here, go only to Baviera or Luacar in Lisbon, Portugal.

I forgot my MINI only has 6 months on road "bought with 0 miles" new ...well not now

Cheers

[ianwat]

Hmmmm...interesting reading. We're trying to take delivery of a 54 plate MCS. Nice car, Chili pack, tlc, etc. It'll be my wife's car, and she's got a personal plate on her current car (which we're p/x-ing), so asked the dealer to arrange the cherished transfer. Sales manager was quite clear that he didn't like the whole cherished transfer process as it 'causes them problems'. Still, he had all of the relevant paperwork last Monday (5th), had the relevant insurance cert from Mini insurance on the Tuesday, and we were told that the paperwork would be sent to DVLA on the Tuesday. Phoned them today to check on progress. 'No reply from DVLA yet' was the response. So I phoned DVLA helpline; only to be told that there was no record of any cherished transfer application being made. Told the dealership this - they phoned 'their contact' at DVLA local office - only to be told the same thing. Sales exec. has now passed this on to her manager, who is supposed to be phoning us tomorrow. Apparently the 'admin manager' in the dealership who deals with the paperwork only does admin in the mornings, does accounts in the afternoons, and will not deal with any queries re. admin when she's doing accounts!!!!

Beginning to have a bad feeling about this...........

[ianwat]

Update to my last posting - still haven't taken delivery of the MCS yet, as the cherished plate transfer isn't through yet. Mainly because the paperwork wasn't handed into the DVLA when the dealer said it was, it was handed in 1.5 weeks later, having being left in one of their cars for that time "because the driver forgot about it". We found out when we phoned DVLA for an update to be told that " the application was handed in on 16th Feb., hand delivered". Called the Dealer Principal, who didn't bother to make even a courtesy call back, just passed it on to the Brand Manager, who got an earful from me. They have finally admitted that it was their ****-up, and have promised that they'll 'do something to compensate us'.......well, there's the small matter of the UJ decal that we've asked for on the roof.....perhaps???