2011 MINI Countryman Delivery Gone Right

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I honestly could not be more pleased with the service I received from Moritz when purchasing Douglas. Brian (the new MINI sales manager) has done a fantastic job since he took over there. Both he and Rosie (my MA) were great to work with, and she kept me informed every step of the way, including sending e-mails to know when he went into production, when he was complete, when he got on the boat, when he arrived in GA, when he arrived at the dealership, and when he was ready for delivery. She was awesome. But, the biggest thumbs-up came for what happened after all that .. so please allow me to ramble on a bit.

I went to pick him up on Wednesday night and noticed that there had been a mix-up on the order. For those that haven't seen a Countryman yet, it comes with a center rail that runs from the gearshift back towards the rear seat. IMHO, it's kind of a stupid design ... it takes away rear foot space, cordons off the rear passengers, and looks like there's a huge ski rack running the length of the passenger compartment.



However, you can get a "split rail" as a no cost option, and I think it looks MUCH better.

So, at the time I built the car on MINIUSA.com and sent it to Mortiz, the configurator was undergoing a bunch of changes (some new options were being added, etc.) and so a bunch of the options I picked out didn't make the list that they received. Rosie and I went over the options to make sure they were right before placing the order, but, because the split rail doesn't come standard, it has to specifically be entered into the build as an option, even though there's no charge for it, or you get the full rail. So, when we reviewed and confirmed my build, there was no mention of the car having either rail on the spec sheet, and I didn't pick up on it at all.

Fast forward to last Wednseday ... I walked into the dealership and saw the car, and it looked better than I could've imagined. I was soooo excited. But, when I looked in the car and saw the one-piece rail, my heart sank. I immediately brought it up, and Rosie and Brian checked to make sure that it wasn't a screw-up from the factory, as MINI is want to do quite frequently. Well, no screw up, it was built as spec'd. This was pretty much entirely my fault, because I didn't specifically say I wanted the two-piece rail, and didn't catch it on the build confirmation sheet.

Once again though, Brian was awesome. First, he offered to undo the sale, and reorder the car with a two-piece rail, even going so far as to say I could have a service loaner to drive while I waited. (I couldn't believe that offer, but ugh ... the thought of waiting another 6-8 weeks was terrible.) So, I was going to leave the car there and go home and think about it overnight, but he offered to let me take it home anyway and still bring it back the next day and reorder. After going home and sleeping on it (and sneaking out into the garage every 30 minutes to look at it didn't help), I figured it wasn't enough of a problem that I wanted to wait another 6-8 weeks, so I decided I was going to call Rosie in the AM and tell her I was keeping it.

Instead, before I could call her, Rosie called me and told me they had come up with another solution. When we first looked at it the previous night, it looked as though the parts might not be interchangeable, as there's wiring for the "mood lights" that are inside the rail, as well as different mounting points. But, that morning, they had a tech look at it and he thought it could be done. They then scoured the parts lists and determined they could get all of the parts, some even coming directly from Germany. So, this was going to be an "experiment" in parts swapping on my 3 day old car.

I dropped him off Saturday, right before closing, and picked up a loaner. The tech was right ... it worked! I picked him up yesterday afternoon and all is well, and I am SOOO thrilled.

So, again, a HUGE and to Brian, Rosie, and everyone else at Moritz. As I said, I couldn't be more pleased.