| rev:text
| - I took my 2003 Mini Cooper to the service department with a check engine light and non-functional A/C. They kept car my for two days, charged me $1K and replaced the battery. They declared the car fixed and returned it. Problems began surfacing almost immediately, including several that I didn't have when I brought the car in. Within three days the A/C was out again, the check engine light was back and now the car was repeatedly stalling and the fuel gauge quit working. When I brought the car back, the dealer tried to blame the same A/C compressor they told me was OK on the previous visit for the check engine light and the stalling, replacement cost $1,500 (which is insane). They also told me that they were going to charge me more diagnostic fees for anything that they didn't look at before (even though they caused the new problems). When I told them the car stalled with the A/C turned off (ruling out the compressor as a cause) they still stuck to their story. I knew then that these people were clueless. They told me that I had the "wrong" spark plugs (I had just installed new Bosch plugs), but they would be happy to sell me the "right" ones for $34 each (the exact same plugs are about $7 each at O'Reilly). I don't know how these people sleep at night with the way that they overcharge customers. Their approach to repair seems to be to throw grossly overpriced parts at the problem, then repeat if that doesn't work. When they screw up or cause more problems they explain it away as coincidence, and they expect you to pay them to diagnose the new problems that they caused.
I complained to the Better Business Bureau - and found out how useless that they really are. They make excuses for their paid members rather than helping consumers. They told me that the dealership "made a good faith attempt" to address my problems, when in fact they made no attempt at all. All that I really got from them was a rental car for two days, a new battery and a bill for $1,000. A complaint to Mini of North America yielded nothing either. This will be my last Mini.
After paying this place $1K to fix a problem that they didn't fix (and they broke other things in the process), I don't trust them to do anything but drain my wallet. At the recommendation of the Sin City Mini Club I took my car to Kensington Motor Cars. They diagnosed in a few minutes what Desert Mini failed to diagnose in almost three days - and I actually got my money's worth there. Kensington has a master Mini mechanic on staff - who left Desert Mini because he was tired of the way that they rip people off. He certainly knows a hell of a lot more than the hackers at Desert Mini who are supposed to know my car inside and out
When you read the reviews of this dealership, you can tell whose cars are under warranty. Most of the people getting warranty work done are happy. Once you start paying for repairs, satisfaction goes off the cliff because parts are outrageously expensive, diagnostics are expensive and often wrong, and when they fail to fix your car, their solution is for you to pay them even more. Do yourself a favor and find a good independent Mini mechanic like I did.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)