June 26, 2007:

Flaking paint at MINI United

Further to my Flaking Paint post a while back … while at MINI United we checked out some of the GPs that were there, and saw a significant number of similar paint issues! It’s clearly not a rare defect.

The worst car we saw was GP0952; both the left and right “brake ducts” had significant paint problems:

It became apparent what is happening here, too – most obvious is some sort of lack of preparation so that the paint is not properly bonding; we saw a number of GPs where the paint was still present, but was bubbling and lifting (the first stage of failure, presumably); here’s a couple of examples (as above, click for bigger resolution):

The other issue is that the painted section unclips from the black section, and the painted rear edge starts to separate (like the bubbling above) but presumably now as the two separated pieces flex due to air movement when driving, the paint is chipped and flaked off:

In my opinion, this is a manufacturing defect and should be a warranty issue; anyone that’s had refusal from their dealership should re-visit this, with these pictures in hand!

(and PS: GPMINI is now repaired, under warranty)