Great British Cars – February 2012

MY MINI COOPER S had its fourth birthday a couple of months ago; it definitely wasn’t worth celebrating, as the warranty ran out on it the same day. It was that four-year warranty of which the first three saw it maintenance free, or so I was led to believe. “No worries” quoted the salesman who sold me the car, “we take care of everything for the first three years, even the windscreen wipers, the only thing we don’t cover in this maintenance-free period are the tyres, and we can sell you a separate warranty on those.”

It was a pretty comforting thought knowing that there would be no unexpected service or repair bills to worry about after taking possession of my new 2007 Mini Cooper S. The normal scheduled service after the first year on many cars can usually run pretty steep and are a requirement to maintain the warranty. This three-year maintenance-free deal applies to all BMW cars and was a great selling point, it was for me. I chose the Mini Cooper thinking it would be a great little car for my daily use, and I have to say it has been just the vehicle I needed for the work commute and general running around. These journeys average out at around 12.000-miles-a-year of which about 70 percent is non-freeway driving – myself being the only occupant for 90 percent of the time.

Fuel economy is good and the performance is excellent when threading in and out of traffic. I didn’t opt for the tyre warranty on my Mini Cooper by the way, but here’s a pointer when buying any new car: it is pretty standard that all car dealers will offer you a tyre warranty and my tip is to say “no”. Reason being, that the chances are that they will offer it to you anyway, at a substantially lower price than their initial quote because even at half price it is a very good deal for them anyway.

The situation, however, was a little different on my car as it had run-flat tyres and unbeknown to me at the time, some makes of these kinds of tyres are not repairable and guess what, I had a puncture inside three months of ownership. My first call was to the dealer who advised me to buy another one as the tyre I had was unrepairable. I got a different story from America Tire however –  Dunlop run flats can be repaired and so I took it in for mending. At America Tire they offered me a warranty on all the tyres (which had about 3,000 miles on them by the way) at a very reasonable price and would throw in the repair for free so I took it. This deal worked out double-good for me, as a couple of months later I had another puncture. This time a nail right in the edge, coming out through the side wall. Definitely unrepairable this time, but no worries, they fitted a new one, no questions asked, I can’t say enough good things about America Tire. I’ll go no place else.

So, after this, the car was warrantied throughout I had no car worries. The JD Power reliability rating on the Mini Cooper S wasn’t, and still isn’t the best, but what did I care, I had a four-year warranty, three of which was maintenance free, and I wasn’t planning to keep the car longer than four years anyway.

The first major service was due at 10,000 miles (including the first oil change, believe it or not) so I took it in for this service at the prescribed time, “we recommend a wheel alignment at 10,000” the service technician said, “OK, go ahead and do it” I replied. “It’s $175”, “but it’s maintenance free” I reminded him. Well, it turned out that a wheel alignment is only their recommendation so they don’t pay for it. Alarm bells were beginning to ring in my ears, I didn’t remember the salesman saying “we take care of everything except recommended routine wheel alignments” I was determined not to spend any money on the car and, besides, the tyres were wearing evenly so I opted against the alignment. After two years and around 20,000 miles the clutch gave out so I took it back in (“everything is covered under warranty except what you brought it in for”), I swear, that was the service technician’s actual words, and on this visit I was told that it’s a wear item and the warranty doesn’t cover wear items.

“It’s a motor car, a piece of machinery, everything on it is a wear item” I told him. It was no use though, I would have to pay for it, $3,400.

Or would I? Follow my “mini saga” in next month’s issue. . . . Happy Motoring