Part one of “Getting it’s tummy fixed” here:

My MINI is back home after a trip to East Bay MINI for it’s warranty repair of the water pump module recall.  While in Pleasanton I also made arrangements for the windshield to be replaced due to a crack on the left drivers side that started to get into my line of vision.

While at  East Bay MINI the following were replaced under factory warranty:

They obviously replaced the module and antifreeze while there all under warranty.

Normally the job only takes two hours to replace, but my windshield replacement meant that the car had to stay overnight.  Then today I received an email back from Jeff Killoran from  East Bay MINI that the car was ready and did I want them to make arrangements for transport back home as soon as possible.  Less than three hours later the car was back home from the dealership all safe and sound, delivered back to my office on a flat bed truck.  The transportation was covered as the car is still under factory warranty.

The gang at the office who watched the MINI being unloaded, joked that there was room for two MINIs on the back of the truck and that next time we should transport both mine and my Sister’s MINI this way.

All in all a very satisfactory experience from MINI and from the folks at  East Bay MINI .

So yes, JD Powers, this is another satisfied MINI owner.

Having a car under factory warranty and living in Fresno means that you have few options when you need service;  drive to your nearest dealer for service or call the Mini Roadside assistance and have it towed there.  So on sunny Monday morning March 12th, my Baby got put on a flat bed and started it’s trip over to East Bay Mini in order to get the Water pump controller changed by the dealer under warranty.

I received the letter from MINI USA which indicated that I needed to immediately contact my dealership to make arrangements for the water pump controller replacement.  Normally I drive my car down to the dealership in Santa Ana for annual checkups, but the fact that this is the time of the year that I can’t take off time from work and the vendor recommended urgency to take care of the matter.  This meant I was looking into what options I had for servicing.

To start the water pump controller recall process I called my original dealership, Crevier MINI (which was not my geographically closest one) and asked for my options.  They indicated that MINI would cover towing the car to the nearest MINI dealership and then returning it back to me using the same towing process.  In the case of Fresno, that’s East Bay Mini in Pleasanton.

I called the dealership in Pleasanton and they were quite pleasant (sorry, couldn’t resist the pun).  When I called, they indicated that the earliest appointment I could get was a few weeks away and the service would take about 2 hours.  I indicated that while there I also wanted to get the windshield changed as I had developed a crack in the windshield and it kept getting a little bit larger and was starting to enter my vision field.  They indicated that the glue on the windshield would take overnight to set.  When the car was complete it would be towed back to Fresno and the dealer would arrange for a “reunite”.  “A reunite?” I asked on the phone, “what’s a reunite?”.  “It’s when we reunite you with your vehicle”, the service specialist said.  Awwwww….leave it to MINI to come up with cute names for the experience.

I called the MINI Roadside assistance phone number (iPhone app available as well) and made arrangements for the car to be towed.  On the appointed day a large flat-bed truck from Blue Sky Towing arrived in front of the house.  As any Mini Cooper owner knows, one cannot just willy nilly tow a Mini due to the front wheel drive, it has to be flat-bed towed.  Up on the truck it went.  While the car was quite excited for this new experience, his owner, however, will be a bit nervous until her baby is back at home safe and sound in the garage.  No wonder they call the process “reuniting”.

Stay tuned for more in “Getting it’s tummy fixed”.