After more THOROUGH RESEARCH, I come to find that Dinan is permitted to perform the work at independent BMW dealerships as long as they warranty their work.

That appears to be the extent of the relationship at the national level.

Partnerships are formed by Dinan with each Dealership, which seems to be very beneficial for all parties involved, INCLUDING BMW CORPORATE.

Dinan does BMW cars exclusively.

As far as the Dinan badge, The dealership permits it, and BMW doesn’t seem to object to it.

But the Dealership / relationship with Dinan could change, as BMW may offer their own custom performance parts.

It will be interesting to see what the dealers themselves will do.

Can BMW force the independent dealers to sell ONLY BMW Performance parts ?

Perhaps not the EXISTING ONES.

But I can guess that new dealerships may have to sell the BMW perfomance line as a part of business.

We’ll see.

As for me, I am happy with my Dinan upgrade.

Funny that no one at bmw told me this.

I thought the relationship was more involved at a national level.

Now I realize that it’s up to the individual dealerships to call the shots as far as Dinan Work goes.

You learn something new every day.

So to say there IS a definite relationship with BMW corporate, is not accurate at all. ( Sorry about that )

Still, Dinan is an excellent company with a great product.

I stand by Dinan and their superior performance products.

I’m proud to be a Dinan 3 owner.

I don’t think the article implies a ‘M’ version of the MINI. It just states that JCW would join the Motorsport division.

I hope Mike Cooper retains these rights, continues their R&D and allows BMW to put these parts in the MINI.

MINI is NOT a BMW!!!!!

Again, MINIUSA or BMWUSA look at Dinan as just another aftermarket parts company. This is something I’ve heard many times over the years, from quite a few dealer parts department managers and MINI corporate folks. If you have further questions on this I highly recommend calling MINI corporate and asking about this first hand.

I guess i should have work for BMW! yeah right!

I think it is a good thing to have a ///Mini. they dont have to have it, but it will be nice to have it! again, let’s leave it to them!

Awesome Idea

Mikey

Even if M technology finds its way into MINIs they would still be better off packaging it under the JCW name. MINI isn’t BMW, just like Lexus isn’t Toyota. Owned by the same people, marketed differently to different audiences.

Just because there hasn’t been a FWD or forced induction M-badged car in the past doesn’t mean there won’t be one in the future.

BMW didn’t make SUVs in the very recent past….the X3 and X5 changed all that.

Roundel suggests that BMW will shortly announce people-carriers to compete with the new R class vehicles from M-B.

I wouldn’t make predictions that BMW will hold true to the past for the application of the M badge to BMW products of the future.

1. all ///M cars must be RWD–mini is FWD

2. they have NA/high revving engine’s—MCS uses forced induction, this is a no-no for the ///M division

3. and of course they have to be manual (with the exception of the e36 M3)

#3 is no problem but #1 and #2 pretty much exclude the mini from being an ///M car…i would expect something similar to the performance package on 330′s or the competition performance package on e46 M3′s

Bob