I have a 2004 Mini Cooper S, bought new from dealer, red with white roof. After recent BMW/MINI authorized body work was done I noticed flaking roof paint at the rear a week or 2 after getting it back. The repair shop told me this was caused by mildew not damage while removing and installing a new tail gate. The nearby Mini dealer says the roof has been repainted since it was built. No record at Mini that it was originally red and then painted white. Flaking paint should not happen even on a 7 year old car. Did Mini paint the whole car red then redo the roof to the color requested or is the repair shop trying to avoid fixing a problem they created?
It is very possible that Mini (BMW) painted the whole car red and then the roof white. This would be a common and acceptable practice to obtain a two-tone car. It’s also possible that a process error was made during the process at the factory that’s now showing up after seven years of exposure to the weather.
Unless the flaking roof paint was on or near work done by the repair shop, I’d suggest that the fault is not theirs. If it is near an area they worked on, than it’s impossible to guess from here.
Sorry.
Of course the roofs were painted after the rest of the car. Remember you could order a British flag,checker board racing stripe and I think something else on the roof. I really wouldn’t be surprised if the roof color options were some kind of decal like thing.
Thanks for the feed back. I am looking for opinions before making assumptions of responsibility!
I assumed the car was originally all red. The interesting part is the Mini dealer rep told me the roof had been repainted but not by Mini, (not in their database) there fore someone else must have repainted it. I am up to 3 dealer reps that promise to get back to me and so far they seem to forget or loose their job before getting answers.
The BMW/Mini authorized repair shop did do work in the area and the peeling paint is in line with the power cord to the lift gate and the hinge. It was a rear ending and required 8K of work including cutting and welding new parts to the frame plus replacing the tail gate and many more parts. The missing paint is after the roof line curves to be under or behind the lift gate so well protected when there is a lift gate and also not exposed to much weather too.
If you are the original owner and the roof was repainted without your knowledge, it must have been at a dealer. Have you discussed this with the dealer that sold you the car? It is likely that they took delivery of it from the port, but it may have come from another dealer. It isn’t clear fro your posts whether you spoke to the selling dealer or another dealer that may be more conveniently located now.
If you are not the original owner then it could have been painted at an independent repair shop (they can be so unreliable) a different Mini dealer (if it was not painted under warranty then it would not show up on Mini’s database) or an auction yard.
Cannot determine if the shop did it since we have no pictures.