Hi Looking at Mini Coopers and was wondering if any can say anything about long term reliability ( like after the warranty expires). I keep my cars a long time. I know maintenance and reliability go hand in hand but in some cars maintenance doesn't equal to reliability.
This is a difficult question because so many factors enter into what "reliability" is.
The only objective data we have is Consumer Reports. Their 2002 and 2003 data isn't good for the Mini. But the anecdotal reports from the field are that the 2004s are much, much better and I think we'll see the data turn around quite a bit when they do the next compilation. The Mini seems to be following the trajectory of most new BMWs and most new German cars - dismal the first year or two, then improving to be average or so for the rest of the production run, until they make a major revision.
There is also the issue of reliability vs. durability. The Japanese cars have initial reliability down pat - very few of the initial electrical, fit/finish, accessory, rattle, squeak, etc. problems compared to Euro or American cars. But if you keep a car a long time, I think German cars, with proper maintenance, can hold up better in the long run. Their underlying systems are very robust.
Another consideration is that all cars are pretty reliable these days, so even a car with twice as much problems as another may be just fine with you. I think the data is that the average new car these days has something like
1.7 problems in the first year, and a much better than average car has about 1 and a much worse than average car has about 3. Is is worth driving an ultra-reliable, but boring car, just so you can have one less problem in a whole year? It may not matter to you.So I'd put it this way. If you think having a completely trouble-free car is absolutely essential and if any little problem you have with a new car results in major hassle and anger on your part, get the Lexus, Honda, or Toyota. But if you can roll with the punch a little, and don't mind attending to an occasional problem now and then, then I think the Mini will be plenty reliable enough for you, and very durable if you take good care of it.
Having said this, I would never own a Mini unless there was a dealer reasonably close by (say within an hour) and the dealers are not plentiful, especially in the west outside of S. Caliif. Otherwise, if you got stuck with some kind of weird problem that required multiple dealer visits, you could have a nightmare getting it fixed.
- Mark
You may get some small niggles, but long term reliability (of the newer builds at least) should be very good. I know of a couple 100k plus cars (BMW cars) and I'm told they're still going strong.
Paul
Their 2003 data is very good to excellent for the Mini. The reliability is excellent for the engine, fuel, ignition, air conditioning, suspension, brakes, exhaust, exterior, and very good for everything else. Then they confuse us by ruling it unreliable overall. From their explanation of how they reach their overall reliability ratings, it doesn't strike me as a useful measure. Basically, it's a quota, and they feel obliged to judge only the top X% of cars reliable. Since so many cars are basically reliable now, the Cooper becomes "unreliable".
Using that same logic, we could find a way to teach children so that they all grow up to be geniuses, and then we'd be complaining that the kids who are *only* as smart as Einstein are not as smart as the kids who are *twice* as smart as Einstein, and that this proved that our education system was still a failure and, gosh darn it, we need to fix it!
My anecdotal evidence is that I'll have had my 2003 Cooper S for one year this coming Friday. I've put 18,000 miles (around 30,000 km) on it. I have a couple of gripes about a couple of intrinsic flaws-- the engine noise, the hesitation when starting on a hill (which really is a serious issue). I had my scheduled service at 13,000 miles--that's when the car said it was ready. I added a quart of oil once before that. And that's all the maintenance it's needed the whole time. It is a pleasure to own a car that I haven't had to bring back to the shop
*once* for any problem whatsoever. I'm holding my breath and hoping this trend continues.
You don't understand their ratings.
They don't rate reliability as "excellent", "very good", etc. They simply report the number of problems reported by owners and say whether this number of problems is high or low compared to the averages for cars in generals. The colored cricles on their charts do not represent ratings like "excellent"; they simply represent the number of problems reported by owners where each color represents a range of numbers - no qualitative interpretation whatsoever.
The interpretation comes in when the compare the number of problems with the Mini with the average car. (The provide a chart with the colored circles for an "average car" at the beginning of ratings.) Then they simply report how the car fared with respect to the average. The Mini is decidely well below average.
You make a good point - "well below average" may be good enough for a given owner. But CR never said anything about "excellent" or "very good". They simply are reporting that Mini owners reported a lot more problems than average. A LOT MORE.
- Mark
I'm looking right now at the reliability history matrix for the Cooper on their web site, and they have the usual legend indicating that a red circle with a dot in the middle is "excellent", a circle with the top half red and the bottom half white is "good", etc.
On the page where they explain their ratings, they do associate these qualitative terms with percentages of owners reporting complaints. "Excellent" corresponds to 2% or less, and "Very Good" corresponds to
2-5%.If I perform a simplistic calculation where I assume complaints for each feature fall into the middle of the range indicated AND I assume that no two problems are reported for the same car, then, given 8 Excellents and 6 Very Goods, I come up with (99%)^8 * (97.5%)^6 =
79.3% of owners reporting no problems at all for the Cooper. If I remove the assumption about no doubling up of problems (that is, I recognize that in some cases more than one of the problems reported is with respect to the same car), then the percentage of owners reporting no problems would be even higher. A car that gives me four chances out of five to go its first year with no trouble is not one to which I would apply the term "unreliable".We're sorta splitting hairs here, and I'm mostly in agreement that the Mini has acceptable reliability. But let me explain again what I see ...
I have the CR 2004 April Auto Issue right in front of me, and CR never, that I can tell, associates any given trouble-spot ratings with a qualitative assessment of "excellent", "very good", etc. They just do a simple color-coding of numeric data:
full-red circle: < 2% owners report problems half-red: 2-5% white: 5-9.3% half-black: 9.3-14.8% full-black: > 14.8%
As you say, the 2003 Mini gets 8 full-red circles and 6 half-reds.
Worst-case, I can do the same calculation and come up with a 63% chance that
2003 Mini owners reported no problems (0.98^8 * 0.95^6). (BTW, if I do the same calculation on the 2002 Mini, I come up with a a 39% chance of no problems.) These numbers are encouraging, although you have to keep in mind that they represent data collected in 2003 and many 2003 owners had their cars a very short time.In addition to these individual area scores, CR reports an overall "reliability verdict" which has three possible values:
red check: Better than average gray dash: average black x: below average
They give the 2003 (and 2002) Mini a "black x" showing it to be below average.
How can it be "below average" with so many full-red circles? It's because the average 2003 car had 13 full-red circles, rather than the Mini's eight. Doing the same math, the average 2003 car had a 73% chance of no problems and obviously 63% is below 73%. Thus, it's "below average."
We're in agreement that the Mini may be reliable enough for a given owner and this little math exercise certainly illustates how you don't want to make these reliability ratings unduly important in selecting a car - should you avoid a 10%-less reliable vehicle that you prefer otherwise? Probably not. In fact, that's the rationale I used to get one - I recognized that the Mini wasn't going to be as trouble-free as an RSX, but I decided it was reliable enough.
But I continue to disagree that CR has somehow rated the individual reliability of the Mini components as mostly "excellent" and then concluded it was "unreliable". At least in the printed edition I have in front of me, they never did either. They report the numbes and say it is "below average". That's it.
Maybe they say things differently on their web site.
- Mark
Like others who have replied to your post, I read and was a bit concerned about the results of the Consumer Reports survey. Unfortunately, the Consumer Reports survey has a 1 to 2 year lag time. Well, there is an encouraging report on Mini reliability out of Germany, available on the Mini2.com news section: "ADAC Report Makes Pleasant Reading for Prospective MINI Owners" "In the annual statistical comparison of reliability for Germany's biggest car club ... the MINI finished first in its class, ahead of its closest competitors..." The news article is at:
- parkerea
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