Clubman Issues? Owners' comments please

[M111 CGC]

We picked up our Clubman Cooper D about a month ago and have now covered nearly 1100 miles in it. It is great, but in that time we have noticed a few 'issues', not all necessarily faults as such so I would like to hear from other Clubman owners with their experiences before bringing the issues up with the supplying dealer.

1) Fuel filling problems

This car is a nightmare to fill up with Diesel - whichever pump we've tried in at least two different filling stations (just filled it for the third time) clicks constantly and interrupts the filling of the tank. If you have the nozzle all the way in then you cannot get more than 0.1-0.2 litres in at a time before the pump stops, no matter how lightly you press the trigger.

The only option seems to be to pull the nozzle most of the way out of the filler neck, which allows uninterrupted filling, but a real danger of overflowing the tank.

Interestingly I have not managed to get more than 38 litres into the tank even when the range was down to a little over 10 miles. My R53 tank is around 50 litres so surely the R55 cannot be smaller, can it? Maybe our fuel gauge is totally out of calibration and there is actually 10 litres left when it thinks the tank is empty?

For reference, the overall fuel consumption from new is showing as around 47mpg on the OBC, and two fills after the dealer fill have taken us to around 1050 miles, so approx 350 miles per tankful (approx 40mpg if each fill is only 40 litres maximum).

2) Wind/road noise

There is noticeably more road/wind noise coming from the area of the B pillar on the driver's side of the car when compared to the other side and our experience of R50/R53 Minis.

Interestingly there is no outer door seal on the bottom of the passenger (nearside) door, as noted in other threads about changes to R56 build spec during 2007 as a likely cost cutting measure by the factory. However the driver's side door has the outer seal, as does the Clubdoor!




3) Faulty Auto A/C thermostat

We went on a long trip (around 75 miles) last weekend during damp and rainy conditions. The windscreen and front windows kept fogging up and I had to intermittently use the 'quick clear' button to use the blower and heated screen to clear it.

About halfway into this journey after I put the heater back to 'Auto' it went totally crazy and started pumping really hot air into the cabin. Even when I dropped the temperature control a couple of times it made no difference so I set the A/C to 'Lo' and even then nothing changed. We turned the heater off for the rest of the journey but it seemed to behave itself on the return journey.

4) Dodgy paint

We have a patch of really rough paint on the inside edge of the RH rear door - looks like a small piece of masking tape or similar was painted over right where there is a line of mastic along the edge of the door skin seam. It's painted, but rough enough that a sponge tears on it when cleaning the car.



5) 'Bonging' from the OBC for no apparent reason

Our car has an annoying habit of giving out three quiet bongs at regular intervals, with no corresponding warning message on the rev counter displays. It is quieter than the low fuel or low temperature warnings and seems to occur at all speeds. At worst it can do it every couple of minutes during a period of a journey!

The handbook is pretty useless at explaining all of the possible causes of the 'bong'.

EDIT: Now sorted on the Bong - turned out to be a software update I did on our TomTom at about the same time as Clubbie arrived added some speed and accident blackspot warning so it wasn't the car after all!


I would be interested to hear if any other early Clubmans are showing these issues, and if so have they been fixed by visits to the dealer.

Chris

[pbarclay]

Sorry to hear about your problems with the Clubman.

My conventional MINI Dooper has 40 litre fuel tank - a bit weird but they obviously felt the increased fuel economy justified a smaller tank. I see from the brochure it is standard on both Clubman Cooper and Dooper but the S needs a 50 litre tank. My Dooper fills very easily with fuel - better than my VW and has not caused me any problems in the past 6000 miles.

[Nairda]

Quote: Originally Posted by M111 CGC (original)

Interestingly I have not managed to get more than 38 litres into the tank even when the range was down to a little over 10 miles. My R53 tank is around 50 litres so surely the R55 cannot be smaller, can it? Maybe our fuel gauge is totally out of calibration and there is actually 10 litres left when it thinks the tank is empty?

Sorry to hear of your problems. I can't comment as I've not taken delivery yet, other than to advise that the fuel tank capacity is 40 litres (and 50 on the S).

[Harpo]

Hi Chris, sorry to hear of the issues that have been raised.

The R56 One and Cooper variants do only have a a capacity of 40 litres, and I would assume that the same applies to the Clubman. Only the S is blessed with a 50 litre tank.

You should however get far more than a rather meagre 40 mpg though. I get approx 450 commuting miles for my 40 litres or upto 550 miles on long journies.

It might be worth addressing a petrol nozzle to the neck to see if that is any easier (just don't squeeze it though - no blame accepted here). :¬¦ There may be a different neck for each fuel !!!

You should be alright with the dealership though.

[Harpo]

Quote: Originally Posted by Nairda (original)

Sorry to hear of your problems. I can't comment as I've not taken delivery yet, other than to advise that the fuel tank capacity is 40 litres (and 50 on the S).

Hi Adrian and welcome to Mini2. Hope to see you on The Ridgeway Meet in May - see my signature below.

[Nairda]

Thanks Harpo. Shall let you know a little nearer the time (and when I have the beast ).
Was over at Unipart today so got a good look at all the Clubmans parked up awaiting delivery

[dlpruk]

Chris,

It may not help, and I haven't even got my Clubman yet so I haven't tried it, but my old Jag was a pig to fill until I realised that the pipe to the tank didn't go straight down from the filler and that I needed to put the nozzle in horizontally to stop the cut-out activating prematurely. Worth a try?

[joyrider81]

I'd have a chat with your dealer about all those bits. They're supposed to feed comments back to the factory. I gather the Cooper D Clubman, and Cooper D's have a new filler neck from November to stop incorrect fuelling which might be giving you grief at the pumps.

[The Overrun]

do you have photos of that paint issue?

[Shaun]

I have done 1000 miles with no real problems the front wipers are annoying as they seem to clean really well on the upstroke and smear on the return but thats about it.

On the fuel thing petrol here and no problems, I knew about the smaller tank and have been getting the same miles off £30 worth of fuel as I got off £45 of fuel in the S. I am getting 36mpg at the moment and it keeps creeping up as the engine beds in.

I would try rotating the fuel nozzle so you are holding it almost upside down. We have a VW Shoran at work and had the Galaxy and Alhambra before all three are prone to cutting out on half a tank. Diesel does seem to surge out a bit more than petrol too its more frothy as well.

i would agree on the wind noise there is some from the Clubdoor but not serious enough to worry about.

Been driving a Range Rover all day but felt good to be back in the Clubman it lagged behind on Torque and off road ability but not much else.

[Gemini4321]

We have a couple of problems with our clubman.

1st problem - The switch for the heated front screen not working properly , Mini in Stevenage didn't even know it was an option on the clubman

2nd problem - The rear wipes not working in syn, trouble is once you know it happens you cant help but notice it all the time.

I also had trouble filling up with petrol.

Not noticed any noise from the clubdoor.

Did notice that the passenger window doesn't rise as much as my old Mini Cooper S (05) but it must be the design, as we went back to the show room and all the other clubmans were the same. You can see the corner of the glass, doesn't go up into the plastic rim like my old one did.

And the dealers as so busy that we cant get it looked at till the 25th Jan

Will let you know outcome.

Sue

[Yellow/Black OneD]

I noticed the rubber seal was missing on the bottom the passenger door when I cleaned mine last week, and booked it in the dealers to have them check it out, as I just assumed that the factory forgot to fit one!

Other than that, my 'mood' light on the drivers side door pillar is a different colour to all the others when going through to the blue light, and when fully blue it is dimmer than the others.

I got over 400 miles from my 1st tank of fuel, currently 61.5mpg, but I do have 70 mile round commute to work, and yes, how annoying is it that the tank is only 40 litres!

[Paul]

The 'Bong' isn't because it's 3 degrees outside is it? That's the ice warning sound.

[Mini_Flower]

Quote: Originally Posted by Paul Mullett (original)

The 'Bong' isn't because it's 3 degrees outside is it? That's the ice warning sound.

That is one "bong". The other "bong" I've noticed is when the fuel goes down a notch on the display (if that makes sense).

[CapriGT]

I heart my Clubman Diesel!

No problems with paint
No problem with fuel filing
No wind noise issues.

With regard to fuel I have averaged 52 mpg over 1500 miles this is made up of a mix of mway cruising at 80mph and short stop start journeys. I think you will only see 60 & 70 mpg figures if you cruise at 60 -70 mph on a motorway!!!

Only problem experienced so far is a rattle in the dash Will leave it a while to see if it goes away as Iam all done with dealers at the moment, my last new vehicle purchased (not a mini) 3 years ago was with the dealer more than with me! 9 courtesy cars over the period! YIKES!