CNN Names MINI a “Great First Car”

A MINI Cooper on the same list as a Saturn Aura. Sigh…

The Saturn Aura is no MINI, but it is a damn fine car by GM’s standards. After years of tupperware and uninspiring cars from Saturn, the Aura is a fairly refreshing and competitive family sedan entry. For what I have read, it gives the Camry and Accord a serious run for the money.

People like to laugh at Hyundais and Kias but if you have spent some time on these new cars, the Koreans are putting together a quality product that rivals the best Toyota and Honda has to offer.

As for the article, I question the wisdom of giving a 16 year old a fairly new car. Teenagers need to demonstrate that they can cope with the responsibilities of car ownership. For this reason a 3-5 year old, used and decently maintained compact car fits the bill. In my era you had to work your way up. Kids now days want to start at the top…..

A lot of people don’t understand 2 seaters. And many of these so called “car experts” slam anything that is not a vanilla flavored Japanese sedan, with a 4 cyl engine and plastic wheel covers.

Believe it or not, now days Detroit produce very high quality cars and trucks. GM in recent years have made significant strides on an area that was once the achilles heel of the domestic auto industry. American cars of today have equal or better reliability than most mainstream asian brands, the problem is, the poor quality of American cars of 1970s and 1980s sent off legions of buyers to Japanese brand to never return. In despite of Detroit’s best efforts to counter effect their ill reputation for quality and reliability, they are still fighting and uphill battle with that perception. American’s who grew up in households were only Toyotas and Hondas were bought, will never believe that Detroit can offer a product as good as the one they grew up with. Simply put, you can’t reverse 25-30 years of bad reputation in just 5 or 10 and your post is proof positive of the problem GM, Ford and Chrysler face today… In despite of having the best products in more than 25 years, people still write them off from their shopping lists.

MINI on the other hand, has pretty much a real problem with initial quality. I will say MINIs are fairly well built vehicles but their reliability or at least initial quality mirrors that of American cars of the past decade. I will say that the R56 seems to have less problems than the R50/53 did upon their respective launches, but still MINI quality is not yet up there with the top dogs of the industry.

Hmm OttoMannS, while I do agree that the US has turned the corner of less that stellar cars. I don’t think that they have even come close to working through their problems. Lets look at some general stats,

There have been 4 Mini recalls. 2002 – 260 in the first recall 2002 – 3531 in the transmission recall 2003 – 5110 Suspension recall 2004 – 1193 Tire pressure issues

Chrysler 2004,2005, and 2006 -13128 Sebring recalled 2005 and 2006 – 38447 PT Cruisers recalled

Cadillac 2004 and 2005 – 88303 Escalades recalled 2004 and 2005 – 7689 XLR recalled 2006 – 3227 SLR recalled

Ford 2001 – 446460 Ford Escape recalled 2004 – 446460 Ford Escape recalled 2007 – 630 Crown Victoria recalled

Basically for the output numbers Mini had a pretty average results. I think they still have work to do, although so far the R56 deffinetly shows gains but then again the American manufactures are still a ways from seeing their issue resolved.

imo

Love the britcars, missing my old 74 MGB GT dearly. From my perspective the MINI is BMW’s front wheel drive test platform… and a damn stylish one at that. I don’t see recalls as a bad thing either, a recall is a manufacturer recognizing a problem and dealing with it. I see the point Jon is trying to make, but it’s worth noting that MINI currently has a single platform, produced in fairly small numbers compare to say Honda which had to replace 166 thousand Accord and Odyssey fuel pumps for ’05 models, or how about 292,000 sets of ’06 Accord hybrid headlights.

I only bring it up because simple number of recalls doesn’t really tell you a whole lot. Recalls don’t automatically mean relaiability either. Many fall into the production quality category which could be as simple as upholstery stitching or a peeling lamination. What matters far more to the customer is how the recall is dealt with. And how they are treated at the dealership.

MINI production is respectable, but hardly a drop in the bucket compared to many of those mentioned above. A tranny recall is a big deal though. I’d be curious to know what the CNN writer meant by reliability, because I haven’t heard of MINIs being criticized for their reliability(at least not the recent vintage in the USA)