Today I took my 2005 Mini Cooper in for an oil change. This was the first service appointment I’ve had that wasn’t covered under warranty and I wasn’t sure what to expect. All of the Honda dealers we’ve dealt with have pricey little packages at various mileage levels that include all sorts of preventive maintenance. I didn’t know if Mini would do the same thing, so I was prepared to spend some money.

My local Mini dealership is Motorwerks Mini (and BMW), located in Bloomington, Minnesota. They recently opened the Taj Mahal of showrooms, with multiple floors and heated, indoor parking (a nice feature in Minnesota that more dealers should emulate). The new service area was immaculate and there was a nice owner’s lounge with two big Sony flat panel TVs and free bottled water and wi-fi.

The service manager that was helping me said that in addition to the oil change, I was due to have the brake fluid flushed. That was $100 and could be done at the same time, so I decided to have both done and wait (I had work I could do on the free wireless).

After a bit, the manager came over and said that when they had it up on the hoist, they noticed the front two tires were totally bald. So that’s why my winter handling wasn’t so great this year! The back two were fine and he said they had the matching model in stock and I could just replace the front two. He also said Minis will wear out the front tires quickly if the tires are not rotated every 9,000 miles or so. I will plan to have them rotated at the next oil change, which will be in about a year.

It took a half hour longer than I had planned (and several hundred dollars more than I was planning to spend), but I’m good to go now. I still have two small dings in the front windshield from my cross-country trips, but I’ll wait until I get another one before replacing that (both are on the passenger side).