It literally took me until last year (ie year 9 of F56 production run) to find this out. It was a welcome discovery as I had always loved Minis and live in a really tight city. Waiting for the F66 official release and prices but either F66 or LCI F56 is next in line for me. Personally want it with an auto but sad for anyone who missed their chance to get a manual because of assumptions about reliability
It’s really BMW’s fault. They both have not owned up to the mistakes they’ve made in the past, particularly with the R56 era (07-13, some additional overlap with different models). So a lot of customers got burned and they really did little to actually fix it or try to help those folks out.
Secondly, MINI just isn’t really good or consistent at marketing period. Coming from a dealership myself (albeit since moved on to another career), I can assure you it frustrated us to no end. They would get a strategy going, and then not see it through or completely change it. First they were doing fun, tongue-in-cheek advertising. Then it was nothing whatsoever, then they tried to grow the brand up and make it more “luxury”-focused. Then it was fun to drive. Now they’re back to the fun to drive again. When you’re confusing your existing customers and staff, it’s even harder to bring new people in. That being said, the newer product starting to dominate the used market has helped a lot, as the reputation is turning around. Sales have been up in the US the last two years, pretty significantly, after several years of dropping.
On top of that, everyone just assumes all MINI are the same, so when one has a bad reputation, it just gets generalized across the entire brand. Whereas they have 3 distinct generations, none of which have much to do with the other underneath. As someone who’s both worked for them, and continue to be an owner, it’s really unfortunate that the current generation gets its predecessors bad vibes. It’s very undeserved, and a lot of people miss out on an excellent car as a result.
It literally took me until last year (ie year 9 of F56 production run) to find this out. It was a welcome discovery as I had always loved Minis and live in a really tight city. Waiting for the F66 official release and prices but either F66 or LCI F56 is next in line for me. Personally want it with an auto but sad for anyone who missed their chance to get a manual because of assumptions about reliability
It’s really BMW’s fault. They both have not owned up to the mistakes they’ve made in the past, particularly with the R56 era (07-13, some additional overlap with different models). So a lot of customers got burned and they really did little to actually fix it or try to help those folks out.
Secondly, MINI just isn’t really good or consistent at marketing period. Coming from a dealership myself (albeit since moved on to another career), I can assure you it frustrated us to no end. They would get a strategy going, and then not see it through or completely change it. First they were doing fun, tongue-in-cheek advertising. Then it was nothing whatsoever, then they tried to grow the brand up and make it more “luxury”-focused. Then it was fun to drive. Now they’re back to the fun to drive again. When you’re confusing your existing customers and staff, it’s even harder to bring new people in. That being said, the newer product starting to dominate the used market has helped a lot, as the reputation is turning around. Sales have been up in the US the last two years, pretty significantly, after several years of dropping.
On top of that, everyone just assumes all MINI are the same, so when one has a bad reputation, it just gets generalized across the entire brand. Whereas they have 3 distinct generations, none of which have much to do with the other underneath. As someone who’s both worked for them, and continue to be an owner, it’s really unfortunate that the current generation gets its predecessors bad vibes. It’s very undeserved, and a lot of people miss out on an excellent car as a result.