sevenmxf
04-16-2011, 08:00 PM
Hey everyone. New to the forum. I'm about to drop, what for me is a lot of money on a car, and would love to hear some perspective from you.
The short of it is this: I'm trying to decide between a VW GTi and a Countryman Base or Countryman S.
I'm concerned about the reliability of the MINIs, but there's an emotional chord that the new Countryman is striking with me. I've owned many GTI's in the past and the new one is stellar as expected - and VW's reliability ratings have been solid for the past two years. I usually purchase cars based more on emotion than intelligence. I'm trying to be smart about this purchase because I just lost appx. $15k as the result of a seized engine in a 2008 STi (long story but I'm not hard on cars - apparently oil filters simply fall off after 4k miles, right?).
So, here are my questions:
1. Have the MINI/Countryman quality issues been deal breakers for any of you, ie, do you regret your purchase?
2. If you own the Base Countryman, do you regret not getting the S?
3. Has MINI reliability been as poor as the press would lead us to believe?
4. Any comments on deciding between the Countryman and GTI?
Thanks in advance. Appreciated. I may be an active member of this forum after this week, we'll see!
Michael
The short of it is this: I'm trying to decide between a VW GTi and a Countryman Base or Countryman S.
I'm concerned about the reliability of the MINIs, but there's an emotional chord that the new Countryman is striking with me. I've owned many GTI's in the past and the new one is stellar as expected - and VW's reliability ratings have been solid for the past two years. I usually purchase cars based more on emotion than intelligence. I'm trying to be smart about this purchase because I just lost appx. $15k as the result of a seized engine in a 2008 STi (long story but I'm not hard on cars - apparently oil filters simply fall off after 4k miles, right?).
So, here are my questions:
1. Have the MINI/Countryman quality issues been deal breakers for any of you, ie, do you regret your purchase?
2. If you own the Base Countryman, do you regret not getting the S?
3. Has MINI reliability been as poor as the press would lead us to believe?
4. Any comments on deciding between the Countryman and GTI?
Thanks in advance. Appreciated. I may be an active member of this forum after this week, we'll see!
Michael