I was talking to my local dealer yesterday. He told me that have sold their allocation of Convertibles through until next March ('05). Other models through until late October / early November '04, and they have only one used MINI for sale. Is this typical (for the UK) ?
Must be a regional thing. Yesterday we went to Tom Bush MINI in Jacksonville, FL, wrote a check and drove off the lot with a dark silver Cooper S. I've had to change my will so that the embalmer won't spend my kids' inheritance trying to remove the grin from my face.
Well if you have the $$$, bravo, go for it. Me, I couldn't afford an S or JCW, let alone an Evolution (which starts at $28K).
See now, if you were comparing the Mini to a VW Golf and a Ford Focus like I was, and expecting to have to live with yet another economy car that looks and drives like an economy car, then you can better imagine my pleasure at the terrific handling and the general non-economy-car attitude of my Mini Cooper.
So you bet I'm smiling.
Now then, the repair thing is a tough one. If I have tons of trouble, of course I'll be very disappointed. But I gather it doesn't happen to everyone, and I guess I'm playing the odds there and hoping I'll get lucky. And many of the repairs sound kluge--not so much crisis causing as irritating. Still, I don't like the VW repair record for this stuff much better, ya know? And I just couldn't buy yet another "sensible" and safe Mazda entry model (much as I'm grateful for how well ours have always performed and maintained).
So the Mini was a way for me to finally get more of a car for not more money, if that makes sense.
Cheers!
Lisa
2004 Cooper with DSC, CWP...not to mention RED seats!
I went through what you went through. Went from "safe" but perceived boring into a VW Jetta, which was a blast to drive. But its repair record turned into something very nasty, and I dumped it after a year--for something "safe and reliable". Suddenly, "safe and reliable" took on a WHOLE new look. I enjoyed the hell out of it. Still do.
You couldn't pay me to drive a VW again. And for better or for worse, that's colored me on German "engineering" in general.
My brother also had BMW and Audi, and said the same thing. Told me I'd be sorry. I can't say he didn't warn me.
Right up until the bloody thing needs an expensive repair.
What about my observations with regard to BMWs don't you like? Don't you like it when the truth is thrust in front of you?
You can pretend, but you can't avoid the reality: it's a BMW, and that makes it a vehicle built for the lease market, not for the long term. They're flaky and they're expensive to fix, and things go wrong with them that should never go wrong.
in article snipped-for-privacy@news.usenetserver.com, Elmo P. Shagnasty at snipped-for-privacy@nastydesigns.com wrote on 5/20/04 7:54 PM:
Why are you even on the new MINI group??? Go back to your old mini group, why don't ya. You guys get your panties all in a knot when some newbie inadvertently posts a question about the new MINI on the mini group but come in here and start slamming our cars.
Actually, you're wrong. "Elmo" is a troll. He used to troll the real Mini newsgroup a while ago too by saying how great the New BMW thing was compared the real Mini.
Don't feed the troll. Eventually he'll get fed up and move somewhere else.
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