MINI UK Omdömen 172

Be Aware! Terrible/non existent customer service from Sytner Mini and Mini UK; failure to deal with warranty issue on high powered battery in Countryman All 4 S.

No response to complaint 8 months on from Sytner and no official complaints procedure.

NB: It is also the same case with Mini UK, who say that they leave their franchises to sort out any issues, including warranty claims and complaints!

This of course means that you have purchased a 'Sytner vehicle' not a Mini, and in the case of any issues, will be left to deal with a bunch of glorified 2nd hand car salesmen, rather than the professional organisation you perhaps were expecting.

There are quite a few reviews below raising similar issues. I have bought 2 new Minis. Never again though.

I am delighted with the service I received from Michael Pentland in Bavarian Mini. He is not only charming but tremendously helpful and knowledgeable. I am thrilled with my new mini Cooper and looking forward to another few years of pleasurable driving.

I would give mini assist 0 stars if I could. I suffered a puncture and could called them to help. I waited over 30 minutes for the call to be answered and then they said they might not be able to take me home. It was late at night and freezing temperatures. I ended up calling an independent recovery agent that was great and got home safely.
I found missed calls on my phone in the morning (someone called over 5 hours after I had originally called for help). How is that acceptable? I won’t be calling them again.

My car is great but it has 'One' written on it, I have seen many hundreds of them with 'One' written on them so which one is mine? There is clearly more than one so can I have a replacement badge please? Perhaps it could be a mini 'many'

Mini Roadside Assistance non existent.

90 minutes hanging on. Online site cant find my address.

It appears I have to give them at least 1 star. Not deserved. Having got a puncture at 7.30am yesterday morning, I rang at 7.45 to report I needed help. I was in Harley Street. I tried the puncture kit in the boot, they need to run courses on how to use it. On reporting the incident to Mini, I explained I was a carer for my 96 year old Father who had dementia and he lived alone. I go around to make his meals. Mini said it would be about 90 minutes, but they would try to make it sooner. When I realised the puncture was a large gash in the tyre I rang mini back, 5 times, I was passed from pillar to post or put onto an answer machine. At one stage I was told I was now booked in for 13.40 (5 hours after the initial call) and the guy Nathan said he would see if anyone else could help, after 30 minutes I put the phone down and rang a company who arrived in 1 hour and 15 minutes and put on a new tyre. The final straw was when I had a phone call from a towing company at 6pm last night saying they had come to tow my car away as a result of my accident. Well done mini did they really expect a 69 year old lady to sit out in Harley Street for over 10 hours in 0 degrees. The service was nil.

I purchased my Mini 2 years ago from Stratstone and I have only done 5000miles since purchase. I have just had to have a new timing chain put on by another garage and it has cost me over £600,. I contacted the company and the head office and had no replies!. There was a recall on them for this a few years ago but they say is rectified on the newer models , This is not the case as after reading many forums online this is still a common ongoing fault with Minis.

.......Dont buy a new Mini......

We have had a new Mini on order since Feb 22, with delivery dates given June/July, then 1st week of August, then September, then its definitely built and awaiting delivery.
To now January and no explanation.
We don’t hold out much hope.

Obviously aware of issues with parts, but why string us along with false delivery dates.

During this time Mini has increased the price and took away car options.

Feedback from Dealer is a joke and non existent.

Buy something else....

One word..... Abysmal!

The car is an absolute piece of over engineered crap. It has only done 13,603 miles (now just over 3 years old) and has been trouble from day one.

It loves to throw up random codes every once in a while and the Mini dealership were quite happy to "pretend" they had fixed the problem when the car was under warranty but I was back and forward to them for many months when the check engine light kept on reappearing.

All they were doing was clearing the fault code and then making out they had diagnosed and repaired the fault.

Absolute bandits! The car is now 3 months out of warranty and they want £162 to do a "diagnostic".... Well, they can shove their diagnostic right up their ....

£162 to plug a OBD2 scanner in and read a fault code? Absolute jokers! I bought a Foxwell NT530 (BMW / Mini) scanner 2 weeks ago and it came up with the P0171 fault code (system running lean bank 1) I checked for air leaks after the MAF sensor and, guess what, the jubilee clip that secures the air intake (after the MAF sensor) was loose..... I tightened it up and that's what had been causing the mixture too lean code to appear for THREE years.

A simple 2 minute job with a flat bladed screwdriver! I will never "ever" again go anywhere near a Mini "dealership" (the one I used was Arnold Clark, Inverness) they, quite simply, don't know what they are doing and fob you off with absolute crap when the car is under warranty (clearing the fault codes) and then want you to continue to be fobbed off, but this time paying for it, when the car is out of warranty!

It's my own stupid fault, I should have done my own diagnostics BUT I had faith and trust in BMW and their "warranty".

No longer! I wouldn't trust them as far as I could throw them.

The worst website i have ever used. Tried to book a service recall online- the website kept crashing trying to book for my nearest dealer. Eventually settled on the next nearest, no email confirmation sent and tried to set up an online account to access my appointment and that crashed. There are no hyperlinks to the contact us emails and then tried to type in manually - followed upper case and correct syntax but email addresses not recognised. Tried to phone the dealer to confirm my appointment but the phone number is not recognised.

I don't even know were to start... Ordering the car was fine however from collection onwards was a shambles. I ordered my car in Feb or March 2017. I was told I needed signed paperwork from my guarantor who was my Dad at the time, I gave them the paperwork when I collected the car and that was that. I collected my car on the 22nd March 2017, then on the 7th April 2017 a payment from my old car finance company came out of my bank account, because of this, I went overdrawn on my account. I questioned this with Mini who said they couldn't settle my old finance agreement because they didn't have my signed guarantor paperwork. I told the guy that I had passed it over to the person who gave me the car, to which I was told, he had lost it and that I had to do another one, which I did It was emailed across to them but if I hadn't of rang them, would they have bothered? All was good after that until 2020!!! I decided it was time for a new car and swapped my Mini for a new car. I was told Mini would collect my new car on the 26th March 2020, which I know was just when the lockdown happened. The day came around, I didn't expect them to come and collect it obviously, however I would have liked a courtesy call to let me know so I had confirmation. Nope, I had to call them and then they confirmed. I had to store the car on my drive for 2 months after this until they could come to collect it. In May they came to collect the car and off they went I didn't hear anything from them so assumed all was fine. October 2021 came around and we had to remortgage but were being knocked back by multiple lenders, we had no clue why. The mortgage advisor said to check my credit file as that seemed to be the issue. Having looked over the file I could see that Mini had whacked an outstanding payment on there of £360 but hadn't informed me what for or why so I contacted them and they claimed they'd called me, emailed me and wrote to me in the post but funnily enough I hadn't received anything from them, of course! I was back and forth with them about it, an agent on the phone told me it couldn't go higher than him and that if I did want to take it further I would need to go to them ombudsman, he wasn't in a management role or anything just an agent on the phone. I made a formal complaint to Mini and then started my claim with the ombudsman. I did get an email back from a lady called Kim, at Mini, who advised that she could reduce the amount of the outstanding balance to £132, something to do with my mileage and it being contractual and that she would rectify my credit file straight away. I initially said I did not want to pay them a penny out of rage, we had to go for a higher rate on the mortgage because of their incompetence so felt they should take the hit not me! She did however rectify my credit file. A couple of months go by and I emailed Kim back to say I'd pay it, so it was out of my hair, I was extremely fed up by this point as I had also not heard from the ombudsman, they messed me around too, but thats a different complaint. I didn't heard anything back from my email confirming I would pay. However a couple of months pass, I popped onto my credit file and there was a 6 month missed payment of £132. They clearly had my email and re opened my file but failed to tell me how I should pay the outstanding balance. I paid the outstanding payment on the 1st September 2022, just last week. I sent Mini an email saying it had been paid and sent proof and asked them to update my file immediately, I haven't heard back yet and its a week later so who knows maybe by this time next year they'll acknowledge that email. Anyways my advice would be if you're thinking about buying a Mini, just save yourself the stress over the next 5 years and just don't haha!

Do yourself a favour and a whole world of pain and don't buy a mini, simply as that.

Our daughter has a 2015 mini d and the infotainment system has failed, it's a well documented issue that mini and bmw are aware of. They want £200 to diagnose the issue that can be fixed with a software update, this would then be an additional cost.

The car is an unreliable piece of s##t.

We book MOT a month in advance at the MINI Norwich branch. Arrived on time, surprisingly told us it need service and will take 2 hours of waiting. However it took 3 hours and 30 minutes, we are the first arrived everyone's gone were still there waiting. Ask the staff, apparently due to the service. Check our car parking ALONE and no one working on it. Pretty BAD, great excuse to the customer plus tell you extra charges when your there. What if you have further appointments book or perhaps not enough money to pay it all.

Bought an approved used Mini from Sytner mini High Wycombe and found the service acceptable. Zubin was pleasant and personable although was slow to provide us information after our purchase and did make a mistake that would have left us out of pocket had we not caught it. Overall an ok experience.

After purchase I thought I’d use the roadside assistance after damaging the tyre sidewall. This was part of the package and I assumed it would have my quickly on my way. It has now left me without my car for 2 days after the service being unable to help roadside, sending the car to storage then onto a garage without tyres so having to wait for the appropriate replacement to be ordered in. During this I was also left standing in a dark empty car park waiting for a taxi they sent to the wrong location. Communication has been abysmal throughout. Overall the service seems to be a poorly managed network of subcontractors and is not worth the additional money paid for an approved used car over a private sale.

Picked up new Mini Electric on 27 July at Lloyd Colne Mini. Excellent dealership to deal with, for car service and sales alike. Dealt with Joe Massey who was always patient and generous during the 4 month wait for the new build order.
A good crowd of people all around. Dealer Principle came to say hello too on the day I picked the car up.
This is the second Mini we’ve bought from Lloyd Colne and it’s where I’ll continue to get my car serviced. Thanks again 👍
Martin Weatherby.

We decided to buy a new mini as we had a used one in the past and loved it. We have never had a brand new car before so after putting our order in for exact model, colour etc that we wanted we went away very excited awaiting our delivery date. A few weeks later we got a phone call from the dealer at Marshalls to say that due to war in Ukraine they were no longer doing manual gearbox only automatic and also the packs had changed. We went in and had test drive in an automatic and were happy with it so sat down to change order to be told it would be £4500 more than previous. We were absolutely shocked! We knew it would cost a bit more but had no idea it would be that much. We went home to think things over and emailed them to say we needed a better deal. They offered us £300 as a "good will^ payment. We said that didn't seem anywhere near enough and that we simply couldn't afford that much. They offered us a couple of other new cars that were coming in following week but they cost even more and they didn't seem to have any used cars suitable either. We feel absolutely gutted and the attitude of Mini UK and Marshall's left us feeling like they couldn't care less. We will never go back there again!

Long standing customer feeling let down. I'm writing this as someone who's had 8 new minis over the years. We're now in a cost of living crises, all tightening our belts, and trying to be smart with our monthly outgoings, so I made a simple request to change my DD date to the 1st of the month. We've moved all our other outgoings to the 1st to help us budget with all these increases across energy/food/fuel. You'd think this was a simple request but no - a passive aggressive reply which was a no. Guys its 2022 - how can you not offer that flexibility? Terrible experience.

*update in september 2022 - still no resolution, its still on-going*

My wife has set up authority for me to deal with Mini Finance on at least three occasions over the course of her finance agreement on her car. On each occasion I have contacted them I have been failed on the security check because according to them I've provided the wrong answer when asked my mother's maiden name. This falls way short of the level of service I would expect from Mini and but was firmly told that there was nothing the phone operative could do about it. Your inabilty to process and keep my data correctly is your responsibility and can't be too taxing a job and yet I'm the one inconvenienced by this whole thing. Sort yourselves out Mini Finance, this is not the way to deal with your customers.

SADDENED I HAVE TO DO THIS.

From start to finish Mini BMW the brand (and there financial department they keep separate) have sustained in making things an unpleasant experience.

+ From reciepting the vehicle in a poor state
+ Experiencing manufacturing defects and them having to be resolved repeatedly due to poor standards of service from original fix.
+ Extremely poor after sales from main HQ, who don't seem to capitalise on long term learning.
+ No accountability for anything, only an acceptance if bound by certain obligations in contracts or agreed terms.
+ No competence within there escalations department in dealing with situations that could be resolved in a more positive light for both parties, while maybe reasserting trust back to the brand for the customer for future customer retention
+ There process for complaints is addressed but generically, and will only respond to mitigate obligation and will almost always point you towards financial ombudsman or relevant regulation body.
+ Lastly they don't understand there customers clearly, and are unwilling to make the environment for the customer more amicable with empathetic responses and fulfilling a duty bound practice of quality an excellence from start to finish, which would give you the ideal experience even for the customers that are harder to deal with.

Very Alarming.

Our mini clubman got a puncture on the M18 motorway yesterday....we managed to get to the Woodall service station...

I rang Mini Roadside and spoke to a very efficient and helpful assistant called Chanel.....she arranged everything..no fuss.

A tow truck arrived within 2.5hrs (which in the current climate was to be expected) and a taxi was sent to ferry us...and all my daughter's University kit...home.

We were so impressed - the tow truck driver was completely charming and professional as was the taxi driver. Chanel at Mini was truly brilliant - I actually felt she was genuinely keen to help and wanted to get things done for us a soon as she could. She kept us updated throughout so we never were left wondering what was going on.

Amazing service all round!