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| Message: | I love how when I post something similar, nobody seemed to care, but I'll post it again: _____________________________________________________________________ For more details and the origonal posts go HERE(I'm TonyMCS and Graham Chandler is mckinneyMINI). For my birthday, I got a 15% pulley for my '03 MCS. So, one saturday afternoon I take my car to Chandler Motorsports in Lewisville Tx to get this new toy installed. Just so you know, Chandler Motorsports is one of the premeir MINI shops in the US run by Graham Chandler and his son Josh (who did my pulley install). Several hours and a few problems later, I arrive at the shop to pick up my car thinking that everything was finaly well and good (not only did they install the pulley, but they also fixed the dreaded moose groan from under the bonnett, the collapsed partial-load breather), it turns out there was a loud and annoying squeak. Josh was quick to inform me that the car was driveable, HOWEVER, the squeak was coming from a faulty idler pulley. After examing the pulley for several minutes, it was clear that the piece was showing very irregular wear and that its life was growing short. Josh told me that it was no big deal for the next day or two, but that I should definetly get it fixed asap for if this pulley breaks, the engine blows. He told me to take it to the dealer and that John Roberts is usually pretty cool about mods. Josh reassured me that his installing the aftermarket s/c pulley had nothing to do with the idler pulley and that he did not touch it in any way. It was clear that this had been going on for a long time by the wear on the pulley and that the reason I never noticed the squeaking was due to the obnoxiously loud moose call from the collapsed hose. Well, two days after getting the pulley installed I took my car into John Roberts dealership in Dallas (also known as MINI of Dallas). I first just pointed out the problem and did not mention any mods in hopes that they would overlook the new pulley (my car was bare stock except the pulley). Later in the day I get a call from Marc in the Service Department saying that they cannot touch the idler pulley underwarranty because of the aftermarket pulley. No big deal, I was ready for this and initiated my plan to make sure that this would be covered under warranty. I told Marc to have the techs look over the pulley and observe the wear. They should notice that this has been a long standing problem and occured before the aftermarket part was ever installed. Just in case they didn't believe the date I had it installed, I assured them I had the reciept of the install for proof. I thought all was good and done... Again my phone rings and it is Marc. He says they looked it over and that the warranty guy will still says "no." So it was time for me to bring out the big guns. I had Graham and Josh both talk with the dealer. Graham worked especially hard in trying to resolve this issue. Graham first talked to Marc, then was passed on the Marc's boss, who then passed him onto the Regional Director of MINIUSA for our region. Graham even threatend legal action! So how does this story end? Despite the obvious fault on MINI's behalf, they are not covering the idler pulley under warranty. Several extra tidbits of info: 1) Upon asking the dealer how much it would cost to fix just the idler pulley, I was told that I would have to purchase a whole new supercharger (which is a total load of BS) 2) The believed cause of the faulty idler pulley is that after my car was in a wreck (hit in the front), the car was taken to John Roberts to be fixed and they failed to fix this part. I payed around $7000 for a quality job and they forget to fix something as important as this! They also forgot to refill my coolant tank when I picked me car up (after being repaired from the accident), causing my car to nearly overheat on the drive home. 3) Marc was great to work with and tried his best to help me out. | ||||
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