My MINI (Penny) was under the dealer's warranty for 3 years, and right before the warranty expired service mentioned that I had a small oil leak. I hadn't noticed any oil in the driveway, and I never was low on oil prior to needing it changed. If I had scheduled service, the warranty wouldn't cover it because the appointment would be outside of the warranty period. They did tell me a horror story of a guy who had an oil leak and it leaked on some electrical stuff and he was stranded on the side of the road. They didn't say that was what was happening to me, so I just assumed they were trying to get another service out of me. Meh.

But a few months later, a turn signal had died. Days later, my fellow was following me in his car and called to mention that none of my rear lights were working. I called my local German mechanic and immediately brought her in for a checkup.

Turns out...the oil lead was leaking on an electrical box and poor Penny was shorting out. My mechanics were great: cleaned the electrical so that it didn't have to be replaced, and only replaced needed lines. I was irked at the service folks at MINI because they didn't tell me that oil was indeed directly leaking on electrical. Especially since they added the horror story, they obviously knew this was a common problem, or what would happen to me.

It wasn't terribly expensive because my guys were able to clean versus replace much of the components, but it's obviously an issue, and something that can happen at low mileage (in my case, ~65,000).

THE CAR WAS WELL MAINTAINED WITH OIL CHANGES, ETC. THERE HAVE BEEN PROBLEMS FROM THE BEGINNING TO EVEN HAVING TO REPLACE THE RADIATOR. THE HIGH MILES ARE ALL HIGHWAY MILES. TIMING BELT WAS REPLACED 2 MONTHS AGO FOR $2200. THIS CAR HAS BEEN A TRUE LEMON. FEEL IT IS A MANUFACTURERS DEFECT. MECHANIC SAID THEY'VE SEEN THIS BEFORE BUT CAN'T EXPLAIN WHY. WE HAVE TO SALVAGE THE CAR. BOUGHT IT FOR THE BMW LABEL AS WE THOUGH IT WOULD HOLD UP WELL. NOT. IT WAS A BIG WASTE OF MONEY AND WILL NEVER BUY A BMW AGAIN.