Their current lineup basically shares one engine and transmission in North America. The B38 has been in use in both the current gen Minis along with BMW for nearly a decade now, and it’s proven to be pretty reliable over that stretch. You’ve got a vehicle lineup consisting of only two models that are both nearly 9 years old, sharing the same engine and transmissions that have proven to be reliable over a long period of time now. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they’re high up on the reliability scale at the moment.
They rely on paying subscription model and for those limited members to self report.
Yes, and?
The kind of person who is subscribed to a magazine purely about reviewing the long term reliability of products is exactly the kind of person you want reporting on trouble spots for those products. They’ll be thorough. And according to Consumer Reports, they receive over 300,000 reports from subscribers on cars yearly, which is honestly a pretty solid sample size.
I owned a 2006 Mini Cooper S, and yes it was a total piece of shit reliability-wise. You want to know which magazine reported that it was a piece of shit? Consumer Reports. Want to know when Mini’s reliability ratings started to consistently reach the top 10 on the chart? 2015. They switched to the B38 in 2014 and haven’t updated it since. It all tracks.
Their current lineup basically shares one engine and transmission in North America. The B38 has been in use in both the current gen Minis along with BMW for nearly a decade now, and it’s proven to be pretty reliable over that stretch. You’ve got a vehicle lineup consisting of only two models that are both nearly 9 years old, sharing the same engine and transmissions that have proven to be reliable over a long period of time now. It shouldn’t be a surprise that they’re high up on the reliability scale at the moment.
Yes, and?
The kind of person who is subscribed to a magazine purely about reviewing the long term reliability of products is exactly the kind of person you want reporting on trouble spots for those products. They’ll be thorough. And according to Consumer Reports, they receive over 300,000 reports from subscribers on cars yearly, which is honestly a pretty solid sample size.
I owned a 2006 Mini Cooper S, and yes it was a total piece of shit reliability-wise. You want to know which magazine reported that it was a piece of shit? Consumer Reports. Want to know when Mini’s reliability ratings started to consistently reach the top 10 on the chart? 2015. They switched to the B38 in 2014 and haven’t updated it since. It all tracks.