Back in the Drivers Seat

Good news. After only about 5 hours after dropping off #250 for my 42,000 mile service and to check out the fan issue I got a call from my service manager Vinnie to tell me the car was all set and ready to be picked up.

Since I was at work and had a busy night in front of me (a party of 50 was booked) I couldn't leave and get the car so I picked it up this morning on my way to work. Vinnie greeted me as he always does, with my keys, an explanation of what services were performed and a smile. Service writers can help to make a usually unpleasant trip to the dealer more bearable by explaining everything they needed to do and simply being personable and Vinny does a good job at both. I am happy I got my MINI-E from Morristown MINI because I am very pleased with the overall job the service department does there. The car is always cleaned and charged when I pick it up. The only criticism I can really offer is that Morristown MINI doesn't have many actual MINI's to give out as service loaner cars and they use Enterprise Rent a Car for this. I know most dealers use this practice (When I had a Mercedes they also used a rental company for their service loaners unless you were a "Gold Circle" customer and probably needed to buy ten cars from the dealer to qualify) In all my service trips for the MINI-E (about ten) I only got to use an actual MINI once and it was a clubman. I really liked driving the car and it even made me think about buying one. I think this is a great way to showcase their products and possibly get their service customers to want to upgrade to a newer MINI or clubman. Oh well, what do I know?

Anyway, #250 is back on the road and I only had to shell out $8.00 for gas yesterday. Not bad, but consider this: The same miles driven in my MINI-E would have cost me about $2.65 in electricity, and that was for just ONE DAY of driving!