[ono]

I just want to let other UK Mini owners know of my experince of BMW Mini and their dealers.I have the Mini shortfall insurance on my Mini one and i have just bought a Mini Cooper S,i took out a policy for 3 years on the one but have only had it 18 months and wanted to swap the policy onto my new Cooper S,i was told today that it is not transferable ?,i was never told this when i took the policy out,i spoke to Knights of Newcastle under Lyme my dealer and they never knew this,BMW finance say that i should have taken out a monthly policy if i was thinkng of changing the car before 3 years .Just watch out for the con if you take up the shortfall insurance and also if anyone is from the Staffordshire area,dont buy a Mini from Knights of Newcastle under Lyme,very poor service and you get a total brush off if you have a problem.I WILL NEVER BUY ANOTHER CAR FROM THESE PEOPLE.

Ps on another note,it seems BMW Mini dont know my adress,i have not had the passes for two motor shows and i havnt had the invite for the June 26th Cabrio party at the dealers,time to look for another car i think,i bought into the brand and have been let down by dealers and BMW

[KenL]

Did you read the terms & conditions (small print) on the contract when you took it out?

[MukiMunki]

LOL

So far MINI / BMW have been about the best car company I've bought a car off. They ain't perfect but they're best of a bad lot imo.

[Shockwave_Factory]

Quote: Originally Posted by MukiMunki

LOL

So far MINI / BMW have been about the best car company I've bought a car off. They ain't perfect but they're best of a bad lot imo.

I wish i could agree with you, but i have seen a level of service going down and down. To me the dealerships are selling too many cars, and they can't keep a good level of service up. I was going to order a Cooper S, but am in two minds about weather to get another mini, this would have been my third!!

[joebickley]

Ive not even got a car yet and im on my 2nd dealer

Damon Hill in leamington clearly didnt want to sell me a car and the guy had a serious attittude problem! Didnt even need to do a sales pitch on me either really cos i had mostly made my mind up. Called up Sytners in solihull and they were more than happy to take my £17k and service was much better. Wouldnt say perfect though, i would have expected more from BMW really.

Best place for service for me was Brooklyn Ford in redditch, i have had 3 cars from them and another for my gran (work for Land Rover so get discounts on Fords) and they have been excellent every time. Even to the point of replacing my grans car when the engine expired after 2 days!

I find it amazing at some dealers how varrying the levels of service are. At the end of the day ur there to give them money, they should bow down and kiss my feet for the commision!!!


Joe

[randap]

Quote: Originally Posted by ono

I just want to let other UK Mini owners know of my experince of BMW Mini and their dealers.I have the Mini shortfall insurance on my Mini one and i have just bought a Mini Cooper S,i took out a policy for 3 years on the one but have only had it 18 months and wanted to swap the policy onto my new Cooper S,i was told today that it is not transferable ?,i was never told this when i took the policy out,i spoke to Knights of Newcastle under Lyme my dealer and they never knew this,BMW finance say that i should have taken out a monthly policy if i was thinkng of changing the car before 3 years .Just watch out for the con if you take up the shortfall insurance.

The shortfall insurance is nothing to do with the dealer, and in all cases is non-transferable (states clearly). However, if you have a reasonable case (as I did), you may be able to get a pro-rata refund, BUT IT IS UP TO THE UNDERWRITERS and not the dealer. Ask your dealer to contact the underwriters of the shortfall. I got a pro-rata refund because I rejected my car - I then had to pay again to cover the new car. In my opinion this is fair - remember, you are insuring your loan / financial risk, not your car, so if you change the car, the underwriters have got nothing to hang the insurance on.

As for the other problems you have had with your dealer, that's fairly normal in my experience (and not limited to BMW). Once they have your sale, interest is lost (unless you buy a motorbike from a bike dealers......).

[HObzy]

Sounds about right on the insurance front - while annoying its the same for most products. If you bought a TV and got insurance on it and then bought another you wouldnt have been able to swap it. If you told them you weren't planning to keep the car then they should have warned you, but if you didnt, then its not really their fault.

But i do agree, the difference between the level of service offered by different dealers is terrible. Luckily mine are great. (Snows in Pompey) (does that get me discount on the next one i buy Ben?)

Stick with it it will be worth it in the end.

[dcfkan]

Luckily Apple is not a Friday lemon (sorry, can't resist the pun ), so I have not been in and out of my dealership like a yo yo.

So far they have treated me and Apple very well - THANK YOU Carrs of Bury St. Edmunds

They have always washed Apple and gave her a quick hoover

They even asked my mate at work who popped in to look for a estate BMW if she knows of Apple as soon as they established she works in the same place as me

I have been to Snows in Newport, Isle of Wight, to get a pair of wiper blade during a short visit to see the outlaws, and they fitted them for me without being asked!

And I cannot thank Maxwell Motors in Dublin enough for getting me going FOR FREE after I had a suspected tire punction during the recent Mizen to Malin run

I guess the level of service and how one is treated various enormously amongst dealerships.

I am lucky that I have nothing except good and reliable services from the ones that I have encountered so far

DK :apple:

[Tigger, Eeyore & Roo]

The sortfall insurance does initially seems very good value for money. However, when the policy is set up the underwriters must realise that the chances of anyone keeping the car into the 3rd or 4th year are fairly slim and, as such, the risk is fairly small as the difference between settlement and original invoice value in the first year or two can be minimal. In addition, the chances of a car being written off in the first 2 years are much lower as the damage will need to be extensive to justify write off. As such these policies may not be as good value as they initially appear.

In defence of the dealer, because the policy is non transferable, it is a problem for the dealer when they try and get you to upgrade your car. The customer has yet another reason to hang on to their existing car to get the full benefit of the existing insurance policy.

My own dealer, Ocean at Falmouth, asked me straight away how long I was planning to keep the car for and only tried to sell the policy to me after I told them I planned to keep the car for many years. The policy even gave me a 30 day "cooling off" period. In all other respects my dealer has been near perfect, despite being incredibly busy.

Tigger

[Jules35]

Quote: Originally Posted by joebickley

Ive not even got a car yet and im on my 2nd dealer

Damon Hill in leamington clearly didnt want to sell me a car and the guy had a serious attittude problem!

Would be interested to know which guy you were dealing with there. I am buying my mini with Damon Hill and the guy I have dealing with has been good - I had three seperate test drives, rang up about a dozen times to ask questions (mostly daft ones) and have changed my spec about 5 times. He has been nice about it all - if a bit slack about returning calls - but I get the impression from when |i have been up there that he has been run of his feet a bit.

I did have to deal with someone else one time when the main mini guy was not there and he was considerably less helpful - maybe you just got someone covering for a while who did not know the cars so well.