Ok, I swear I'm not going to turn this into a Mini Cooper rant blog, but I had some interesting discoveries on Friday I wanted to share. First off: My wife and I had decided we weren't really interested in going to court. It seemed like a lot of trouble. But the lawyer called us on Friday and really wants to work with us.

Then my wife did a bit of research. Now - it is not surprising that she found folks complaining about Mini Cooper. You can find people complaining about anything on the Internet. However, some of what she found was pretty interesting. Consider...

http://www.chenelle.com/2005/03/18/mini-trouble/

From this entry: "Performance issues - idling too low, jerking motion when shifting gears automatic mode, loss of power and then jumping forward from a stopped position to go"

This is exactly something my Mini did. She also mentions indicator lights - we had that issue with our trunk. (Which by the way Brian Harris said was our fault for slamming the trunk.)

http://www.consumeraffairs.com/automotive/mini.html

From this entry - note how they accused one person of driving into a swamp (in NYC). My favorite quote from here though: "The Operations Manager first stated BMWs weren't subject to lemon laws!" Another quote:

I only slightly under 30,000 miles on my 2003 Mini-Cooper and was told I had to pay for a battery replacement because I had not driven the car enough. Even though I drive my car daily to work - I have to pay over $200 for a new battery because I did not use the car enough - this is so ridiculous. Talked to several Mini representative and all say the same - Mini Policy and yet it is not in the Policy Book provided upon purchase.

This is also what Brian Harris told us multiple times - that we didn't drive the car enough. Gee - what is it? Not driving the car enough or driving into swamps?

My wife had Brian Harris send over our service history via fax, and it is amazing how much of the history is a list of things we did wrong. Not driving it enough. Slamming the trunk. Using "bad gas".

You know what - screw this. We will fight.