[wingspan]

Hi all - My first post, and I thought I would ask about experiences, positive and negative, on Downtown Mini in Orlando Florida.


thanks!

mag

[BruceK]

I haven't purchased a car from them, but I did visit Downtown MINI (twice ) last week while I was on vacation.

My experience with them was very positive - especially with Mike Priest there who is a real MiNi enthusiast. I test drove both a Cooper and a Cooper S and crawled over every inch of the cars in the showroom. I was told Downtown MINI is one of the few (if not the only) dealership that follows the intended formula for MINI dealers: a dedicated urban setting that is standalone from any BMW dealership. It's a nice set up and I came away very impressed with the whole operation.

The only negative I saw at all is that they require the purchase of MINI accessories when buying a car - $1K worth for the Cooper and $1.5K for the S.

[BigMack]

I also have visited Downtown MINI and was impressed.
Please be aware though that for your extra $$$$ you get to choose exactally what you want to purchase.
They do not push any extra "Paint protection" on you, or anything you don't want.

If you want $1000.00 worth of whatever, you can have $1000 worth of whatevers.

[BigMack]

Excellent service, and Sean is the best service manager / mechanic, I have ever seen.

I used to be a mechanic, and am very picky about who I let near my car with tools.

My Cooper has been to him three times for service & repairs, and he fixed everything in short order.

My Cooper S will be in around Nov. 16th and feel I'm in good hands.

For Sales, see Mike Priest,

For Service, Sean is Da MAN !!!

[DITCH]

No complaints here about the sales dept. MP took care of me.

The quality of their service dept is yet to be seen. I'm taking my car in this week or next to get some minor issues straightened, and I'll post results here.

Ditch

[BigMack]

I am confident Sean will do his normal excellent work for you too.

Good luck on getting your items sorted out.

[HollyRN76]

I bought my MC from Downtown, and I would buy another one from them IN A HEARTBEAT!! They were really interested in what I wanted...not what they thought I needed. After being totally turned off at Ferman in Palm Harbor, this is the only place that I will do business with.

[Pebble]

Yup that's about it, I can't think of how they could of treated me any better. Good sales staff and Shawn is great.

Be aware though they have a mandatory $1000 dealer accesories on the cooper and $1500 dealer accesories on the cooper 'S'.

You can spend this mony on accesories of stuff from the Motoring Gear Catalog. I knew I was going to get a CD changer and matsn so thers a load of cash spent already!

[BigMack]

I have a list of stuff I want for my 1500 buck-er-roos.

going to get a chrome grill for the S and the S style gas cap kit for my wife's Cooper.

plus a bunch of other stuff & might get a spare set of wheels & tires........

[DITCH]

Quote:

Originally posted by DITCH
No complaints here about the sales dept. MP took care of me.

The quality of their service dept is yet to be seen. I'm taking my car in this week or next to get some minor issues straightened, and I'll post results here.

Ditch

Update: Most of the issues were corrected, and the ones they couldn't correct, I feel they tried their best. Shawn seems honest, knowledgeable and genuinely interested in solving whatever problem arises. I'd recommend them unreservedly.

(I'm not affiliated in any way with Downtown MINI, BTW.)

Ditch

[cooper4us]

Quote:

Originally posted by DITCH
Update: Most of the issues were corrected, and the ones they couldn't correct, I feel they tried their best. Shawn seems honest, knowledgeable and genuinely interested in solving whatever problem arises. I'd recommend them unreservedly.

(I'm not affiliated in any way with Downtown MINI, BTW.)

Ditch

Good deal, I am glad to hear that they took good care of your MINI.

[MrSpaz]

I just picked up my BRG MCS Thursday, and I must say that I had an overall good experience with Downtown MINI. The car came with everything I ordered, as I specified, and the dealer-installed options were installed quickly. I bought the car at sticker price, and they didn't push for anything at any time, including the $1500 dealer option package that I sprung for anyways. When I picked up the car the paperwork was handled quickly and they even gave me some free hats and little boxes of mints (trivial, yes, but it's the little details that count). I was given a total walk-around of the car and explanation of the features before being turned loose, and would have even been allowed to drive the car "off the showroom floor" (I chose not to because there was a very pretty Indy Blue MC sitting close to the door, and I didn't want to risk plowing it with my not-quite-expert skills with a manual transmission). I would recommend Downtown MINI to anyone considering buying a MINI; they are an excellent crew.

[wingspan]

Mr spaz - So did you think that they've now eliminated the "Mandatory" part of the mandatory dealer 1500 markup???

mag

[azimmerm]

i have been to downtown mini several times and though they are friendly and their showroom is VERY nice, i just can't get past that $1500 markup! Got on the list in S. Florida where all i have to pay is sticker, no silly markups!

[mimicar]

We ordered our MCS from Downtown Mini and the car is on the ship headed to Charlston at this time. We've had a very positive experiance with them so far but the delivery and service will be the real test. One things for sure, the entire staff seems to be Mini maniacs! Our kind of people. Very friendly, knowlegable and helpful. Maybe the best sales staff we've ever worked with.

We had a problem with the $1,500 markup too until we looked at the catalogs. It only took us a few minutes to total up that much on things that we would have bought anyway so it wasn't too big of a problem. We won't forget the arm twisting though.

We'll report back after we take delivery of the car.

[mimicar]

Just took delivery of our new MCS this morning. After the wait it was fantastic to see the car for the first time.

Our delivery was perfect, probably our best ever. No strong arm tactics from the F&I person and our Mini sales rep Christine was great at getting us aquainted with the car. The car came exactly as ordered and the factory add-ons that we requested (alarm & gauges) were expertly installed.

We took lots of pictures and generally had a super time with the delivery. Highly recommend.

The car? AWESOME!

[gatormini]

A required $1,500 package for a MCS, when you do NOT want them, is a rip-off folks. The base MCS is a fabulous car and Mike Priest who everyone is praising at Downtown Mini has one. The only thing he himself said he'd add additionally would be be the cruise/audio controls on the wheel (his words). Ft. Lauderdale Mini asks for NO such additions. I did order from Mike & Downtown last week but that was AFTER telling him I would NOT pay fro accesssory packages and got mgr's approval & faxed me a signed purchase order. Of course, if you want the package(s), none of the above applies. But it OUGHT TO BE AN OPTION not mandatory or you're reinforcing dealer misuse of Mini customers. Speak out!

[Vudu]

I was looking to purchase a MCS with premium and sport packages from Downtown MINI in Orlando. What I was told was that the car was being sold at MSRP (okay, popular car = no deals) plus a required purchase of $1500 worth of accessories. This is on top of the B.S. $300 document fee (an additional fee to facilitate the sale...imagine being charged a fee to spend money at any other store). I requested a waiver of the $1500 accessories requirement and told them that I was prepared to make the deal right there. They only agreed to cut the requirement in half to $750. I replied that while I could deal with the car being sold at MSRP, I was not interested in any of the accessories offered and therefore did not wish to pay for any unwanted "stuff". I was then told that the dealer really doesn't make much money on selling these cars (yeah, right!) I said that if the dealer and or MINI wanted $1500 more for the car they should just raise the MSRP. As it stands, the dealer is already making the full nut on the car. This additional required cost is just a gouging with a pretty face.

I weighed my options and decided to try one last time to negotiate a more reasonable "deal". The dealer agreed to lower the accessory purchase requirement to $500 but the $300 document fee stays. I've been able to rationalize the $500 requirement enough to make it barely tolerable through the decision to purchase the alarm system and shift knob.

BTW. I was going to drop off the deposit this afternoon until I read the numerous threads in these forums regarding cracked windshield issues and the mysterious "yo-yo" or "stumble" problems. I now have SERIOUS second thoughts about purchasing a MINI after failing to see a clear, factory sanctioned resolution to any of these rather serious issues.

I spoke with the Orlando dealer about my concerns and asked for more information from the service manager regarding any service bulletins or memos from MINI/BMW acknowledging the problems and documenting a solution(s). I was told that there was no documention that could be provided but that the windshield issue was limited to '02 models and that it was no longer a problem...hmmmm...tell that to some of the understandably upset owners of '03 models experiencing this problem.

The extra $$$s are one thing but the relationship with the dealer rarely ends with the initial transaction. Receiving suspect information regarding potential problems prior to purchasing the car is a whole other issue that doesn't leave this potential customer with a "warm-fuzzy" feeling.

I just might have to pass on this cool little machine. Sadly, I think the costs in the long run may justify this decision.

[BruceK]

This is amazing. I posted in this thread some 15 months ago about the negative of the required purchase of $1500 worth of accessories when buying a car from this dealership. This type of unappetizing requirement was sort of the norm when the MINI was first introduced in the US some 18 months ago and the majority of the newly opened dealers were much more greedy and customers were much hungrier to get their hands on a MINI.

But this dealership is still happily pretending the MINI has just been launched an people will pay silly premiums to get one?

Unbelievable.

[mimicar]

Downtown Mini is the only Mini dealer in the Orlando area and many of us simply do not have the time to go order and buy one from some remote location.

As I posted earlier, the $1,500 accessory package was hard to take but in our case we would have eventually bought the items anyway. We placed our order on 5/15/03 and unlike some posters we weren't able to negotiate that amount down. The $299 "dealer documentary fee" was likewise non-negotible. We felt at the time it was a take it or leave it situation. We really wanted a Cooper S so we took it. What the dealership (Fields Automotive Group) didn't take into account is that they won't get anymore of our business in the future if we should decide to buy a car represented by any of their other dealers. We have a long memory for this type of business practice and we won't be forgetting how we were treated in this respect. They can count on it.

BTW, Downtown Mini isn't the only business guilty of "documentation fees". Lease companies have been doing this for years as has the home finance business. It stinks and I would love to see a nationwide boycott of this practice.

We picked up the car on 7/23 and so far so good. The only problem we've encountered is a very slight Cooper S stumble when accelerating from rest. It's very subtile and intermittent occuring mostly noticeably when the engine is cold. We've yet to discuss this with the dealership but we will press them for a fix. The problem isn't something that detracts greatly from the overall driving experiance and I even hesitate to call it a problem. The dealership demo car didn't have any drivability problems so that tells me that it can be fixed. I just want to get a few more miles on the car before taking it in. Overall the car has been wonderful with no other problems to report.

Regardless of the dealerships business practices we still feel good about the place based on the quality of the sales and service staff. I went down to buy some oil filters and one of the service techs took me over to an MCS and went to the trouble to tell me what size socket to use on the filter and gave me some tips that he uses when he changes oil on the Cooper. If it wasn't for the dealer package and the doc fees this would be a truly exceptional business.