In Australia, Mini offer a pre-paid service plan for new and used Minis. Details of the plan are listed here: https://www.mini.com.au/service/service-inclusive/ Basically, the plan comes in two tiers: Basic Cover and Plus Cover. For a new Cooper SE (ie. less than 12 months old), the Basic Cover is $800 AUD (approx. $550 USD) and the Plus Cover is $3,326 AUD (approx. $2,300 USD). Basic Cover includes: - Annual vehicle check - Replace air filter and aircon microfilter - Replace brake fluid Cover Plus includes these items plus the following: - replacement wiper blades - brake pad replacement Both plans cover the car for 5 years or 80,000 km. This is my first EV so I have no experience with maintenance and servicing. EVs are meant to be much lower maintenance with tires, brakes and wipers being common items requiring servicing. To me, the Cover Plus looks like a rip off and not worth it. I imagine that with the regenerative braking the brake pads are going to hold up pretty well and won't need to be replaced within five years. Wiper blades are also relatively cheap and can be replaced as needed. This level of cover seems primarily designed for ICE Mini owners who have maybe heard bad stories about Mini reliability and are anxious about their purchase. Basic Cover, on the other hand, I'm not too sure... So my questions are: is the $800 AUD for x5 annual vehicle checks with a couple of consumables thrown in make sense? Has anyone heard anything about service scheduling? The whole condition based servicing system in the car makes it hard to judge whether an annual check is even going to be necessary.
If my experience with a Tesla is any indication, you'll be replacing wiper blades, adding wiper fluid, replacing the cabin air filter, and airing and rotating the tires. That's the only maintenance, except for a very delayed brake service (as you noted) and, someday, a coolant flush for the batteries. I pick up Jessie later this morning (Woo Hoo!), and I will not be buying the PM option.
I also declined pre-paid service plans when I took delivery of my SE...in part because the summary included wear items like oil & spark plugs. That makes me think they have a one-size-fits-all plan that wasn't tailored for the different (reduced) service needs of the SE. When you start a modern BMW/MINI, the display tells you when your next service should be. They call it Condition Based Servicing, and the next service date is calculated by the way you drive the vehicle versus the age of wear items. My SE says its next service should be in 2022. I need to do some research to see what MINI's actual service periods are for the brake fluid and coolant. The only real benefit I see for an annual check-up is the opportunity for software updates (assuming that isn't something we can do ourselves).
In my quest for getting full-screen CarPlay I talked to 866-ASK-MINI about software updates. I learned three things: Navigation data are updated about four times per year, and updating is done automatically over-the-air; Major updates (changing revisions of software) need to be done by the dealer (but I'm somewhat skeptical); Minor updates can be done by the owner. There are two websites to check for updates, MINI Connectivity and BMW Software Update. The SE info system recommends the MINI site, 866-ASK-MINI told me about the BMW site. (I'm going to duplicate this info in a new thread on software updates so it's easier to find.)
Good looking out, @Puppethead. Also, let's not forget about the 3 year/36,000 mile complimentary scheduled service provided for all new MINIs.
The complimentary maintenance may be a U.S.-only thing: https://www.miniusa.com/why-mini/why-mini/covered-maintenance.html
I just checked and it seems that in Australia the first service is covered by Mini but no mention of a 3-year complementary maintenance: https://www.mini.com.au/static/media/uploads/site-1/mini-next/mini-next-warranty-booklet.pdf
