MINI of San Antonio

It was my daughter's 16th birthday and I wanted to surprise her with a new 2009 Mini Cooper. Our salesman (Alex) was great, he personally went out of his way to help me surprise my daughter by bringin surprise her with a new 2009 Mini Cooper. Our salesman (Alex) was great, he personally went out of his way to help me surprise my daughter by bringing her new Mini to our favorite restaurant with a big bow on the top of the car. This is where the positive experience ends! The first time my daughter had to bring her car in for her first free service they tried to talk her into buying a special oil additive; not trusting this, she called me and I told her definitely not! This happened numerous times when she would bring her car in for the free service. Once they even tried to charge her for new windshield wipers and when she stated that this was covered under the free warranty, they stated to her, "those are for the standard wipers, these are the ultimate wipers"! Well I'm glad my daughter listened to me over the years, because she laughed and told them, "I don't think so"! Another thing, the service department would always say they would call her when the car was ready to be picked up, but they would never call; she would always have to call them. Then when the car's warranty finally ran out the "brake service" light came on. My daughter called and made an appointment to have a complete diagnostic check done. She brought the car into service and talked to Benjamin. She instructed him not to make any repairs until they called her first. Well, of course they never called her and when she called them they said the car wouldn't be ready until 6:00 PM. When she arrived they told her all the problems with the car and that it was going to cost about $1800 to have everything fixed. They then asked her for authorization to make the repairs. She informed them that she didn't have that kind of money right now and didn't want to put it on a credit card; so she said she would bring the car back at a later date. Well she finally saved the money, made an appointment, and brought her Mini back to the dealer; again they (Benjamin) said he would call her when it was finished. After 5 hours, my daughter called and they said they didn't have the parts for the brake job! I couldn't believe it, a BMW/Mini dealer didn't have the parts for a simple brake job! On top of that, they never called her and told her this. It took 5 hours of the car sitting there at the dealership and then my daughter had to call them! She decided enough was enough; she took the car to "Brake Check" who had the parts and did the brake job in a little under 2 hours. I would not recommend this BMW/Mini dealer to anyone; especially the service department. However, is it worth it to have a pleasant sales experience and then find out that your service experiences will always be a nightmare! More