My son has a 2006 Mini Cooper and we brought it to Schneller BMW to have it evaluated. It was running fine but, as a 2006, I wanted to keep it up. So they did an inspection that was $125, I think, and they said the car was in pretty good shape. So my son drove away and then couldn't shift the car into third gear. He tried to drive the car and ended up getting about 20 minutes away from Schneller until the car became stuck. We had to call a tow company to tow it back to them. We don't know another Cooper dealer, so we had the car towed back to Schneller.

I called and said that we drove the car to you for inspection--and it worked wonderfully before, then we drove it off and it was broken. Mike said it was an absolute coincidence. The car was working perfectly fine but now it's broken. It was a broken shift linkage, so he did the repair that cost about $800. But the part that really irritated me was that he took no responsibility. It could have been sheer coincidence, but Mike wouldn't entertain that it could have been his responsibility.

I am a very reasonable person and know cars and that they can break. However, I would've felt a lot better if he said he could've seen where I was coming from. It's a really, really extreme coincidence--I'm not saying Schneller BMW broke it, but maybe they shifted it in a way that my son didn't. I paid $125 for the original service and $115 for the tow--and $800 for repair. But, Mike he didn't say that he'd cut a break because of the situation. The car is working fine now.