James Lloyd

Just Been overtaken by Five Mini Clubman Cooper S on the M4.  Camera phone so Crap picture.

All five we’re the same colour as shown and all left hand drive, and had the cooper S scoop and twin exhausts.

 Not sure what i think about the twin “van” rear doors.

Auto express already have a video of one here. Which kind of indicates this isn’t a huge scoop, and BMW haven’t decided to use the M4 as their new super secret test track.

Tags: BMW Mini, Poor BMW Service, Snows BMW

…… And continue it does a bit more. So today I got a call from one of the managers at snows, to tell me that BMW had agreed to extend the TLC on the mini so that the new engine gets the three years servicing we paid for it from new. This is good news, though really the least they could do.

The new engine is in the mini and appears to be doing all the things a engine should minus all the knocking noises it shouldn’t. This is good, from this whole process I have had to liaise with BMW customer service and Snows BMW Customer service quite frequently. BMW them selves come across as a very reasonable bunch, who we’re obviously trying to help. Snows on the other hand, portrayed your typical bunch Swiss Tony types. They we’re completely uninterested in helping, they lied to me and Sarah out right on several occasions about what was and what had happened the mini.

I have since spoken to colleagues with BMW’s re Snows, and out of roughly 10 people I spoke to only one could recommend them ( he turned out to know one of the engineers personally ). Looks like the mini will be going to wood BMW in Salisbury to get serviced.

Not an Ideal end to a situation but at least I haven’t had my confidence in the vehicle shattered. Next stop is the 17" Cooper S wheels to stop the thing under steering, during enthusiastic cornering.

Tags: BMW 1 Series, BMW 116, BMW 116 Sport
Now I’m an opinionated sod, that’s pretty well established, and its very easy to right off things as being crap, or ugly, or just plain shit. Which makes it all the more relevant when say that the BMW 1 Series is incredibly ugly and the engine in the 116 is absolutely gutless. You may consider these points a big deal and certainly if you are the kind of person who aspires to be one day sat in the weekend sun in your Porsche Boxter with the roof down, then indeed you wont be wanting a 1 series.
However those two points aside, I have to say that the 1 series is with out a doubt the best handling car I have driven to date and I once owned a non-chaved Saxo VTR ( this was back in 98 when they still had some cred left (with non chavs)). Once inside the cabin of the one series you can no longer see any of the body work, unless your preferred driving position is that of a praying mantis. The interior in my 116 sport was your typical Japanese style black, nothing offensive here. Though those of you who would prefer to lower the second hand value of your new BMW will no doubt be pleased to here a number of hideous interior options are available to you. The sport come with the standard mediocre CD player but it does include aux in and a separate 12v socket for all your Ipod requirements.
Missing from the 1 Series is the ability to have the center vents pump out hot or cold air, as you desire, quite a nifty feature on the 3 series. Though present is the weird new Key system also found on the 5 Series (and possibly 3 but I haven’t looked or bothered to research). This as Simon quite rightly points out is just making the process of starting your car overly complicated, just because its a bit fashionable at the moment.
Back to the handling, the sport was incredibly pointable in the corners and I found my self flicking the car form lane to lane with free abandon and a huge smile on my face. I’m going to cut this short as I’m well aware this is no www.topgear.com basically the whole experience leaves me wanting to upgrade my 330ci not to an M3 but to the 130 M sport.

Tags: BMW Mini, Poor BMW Service, Snows BMW
…… And continue it does. Today got the call from snows, they have replaced the Mini’s engine with a new one, apparently the block on this one is the correct length, (still haven’t got my copy of the report). Any way I drove down to snows in my car specifically to test drive the Mini, and all seems well. Gearbox now only making a couple of normal sounding mechanical noises when changing gear. No noises when you just depress the clutch ( your a pathetic clutch and the accelerator is much more attractive ). Just to be sure I got them to let me test drive another mini directly afterwards, both make the same apparently Mini type noises, can only be a good thing.
New battle now, im quite happy to accept the car assuming they start the TLC pack ( on the engine maintenance only ) for threes on the new engine. After all its a brand spankers Engine clutch and Gearbox. Unreasonable ? don’t think so, so tomorrow its on the phone to BMW customer services.
Its probably worth mentioning that as soon as BMW UK admitted there was an issue with the car, snows BMW became a lot more receptive to being helpful. This is entirely because as soon as that happened BMW UK were picking up all the bills. Pretty pathetic customer service from what supposed to be a prestige car dealer! Ironically the most irritating bloke in there is the customer services manager.

Tags: BMW Mini, Poor BMW Service, Snows BMW
Drove back from our honeymoon, and with the Suitcases still in the back on my 330Ci we headed straight back to Snows BMW. We discover three guys from BMW UK have inspected the mini, And decided that a major manufacturing fault has occured with the construction of the engine. ( Details to follow when I get a copy of the report ). So there we both were Jet lagged and ready for a fight. We threw the gauntlett down and demanded we were leaving the mini with them until they have fixed it and they will be supplying us with a courtesy car until then.

They Agreed, bit of a shock that, then they handed over the keys to a Brand new (30 miles on the clock ) BMW 116 Sport.

Now we await the delivery of the new engine.

No doubt to be continued………………………..

Tags: BMW Mini, Poor BMW Service, Snows BMW
The mini is going back to Snows tomorrow night. So that Mr BMW Technical Blokey, can figure out how to get out of not giving us a new car. Personally not fussed about a new car just want the thing mended, I’m not on a crusade to get somthing for free. To be fair though they are fairly incompetent at returning calls all generally thinking for them selves. They couldn’t of done anything more than they already have. That said Woods BMW ( where it was bought from originally ) have been informed of whats going on, and if we return from holiday to find the car still knocks we will be rejecting it.

Tags: BMW, BMW Mini, Snows BMW, Mini Gearbox
Spoke to Snows BMW again today, they said they are still waiting to hear from. The BMW regional technical manager, and that they currently had three cases at Portmouth snows for him to see including ours. So will be interesting to see how quickly he comes back. Or just buggers off on "holiday" again!.

Tags: BMW Mini, Poor BMW Service, Snows BMW
So the mini has a brand new gear box, and now the knocking noise that we once had has magically dissapeared. That is assuming you have the stereo up really loud. So we go back to snows bmw and they have raised it again with BMW UK. So now we’re waiting again for BMW’s regional technical Manager as he’s currently on holiday ( like the last time we needed him to see the car ). I have also spoken to the a guy at BMW customer services, had a chat with regard to process of rejecting the car, which apprently I have to take up with the guys where we bought the car, they then talk to the BMW Tech Manager. Snows say the regional technical manager will be back from holiday on the 22nd of March. So watch this space.

After the mini goes in for its third gearbox, you can never have enough gear boxes on a 13 month old car, Snows BMW (the jury is still out on them) they have this time given me a BMW 520 SE as a courtesy car. The 520 has a couple of obviously features, one of which is the weird Ignition key thingy goes in on the left of the steering wheel. This in its self is so wrong it’s untrue, slightly made up for by the fact they now have a Start engine button ( with added stupid american feature, it wont start the engine unless the clutch is down). The other feature is the new hideous look.

The SE comes with DTC which I assume is the cheaper version of DSC which my 330 has, turning this off makes the car slightly tail happy, but only if the conditions are damp and you thrash the nuts of the tiny little engine. Also included on this monster of a car are some tiny little 15″ wheels which make the arches look quite hideous, mind you I did have to park it next to an E46 M3 today with 19’s on, so that may be subjective.

So in summary if your in the market for a large 4 door executive saloon, then 2 doors aside the M3 is the car for you.

Update 23/02 : Ooo Just discovered that when you unlock the car at night the door handles iluminate from the bottom with white LED’s thats very cool. Less cool is the 2.0 litre engine, which I swear is less smooth than the 1.3 in my MG metro many moons ago