For Mini, it's not a quality problem, it's a quirk - Yahoo! Finance Interesting... although I personally don't trust JD Power's ratings all that much, here's the outcome: 2009 Initial Quality Study (IQS) | J.D. Power and Associates Initial "quality" doesn't have much (or any) direct correlation to long term reliability. Even their "long term" vehicle dependability study is too short term. It only covers 3 year old cars. Also, when people report "wind noise", is it a defect, by design, more than what they expected or something else?
Mini's generally get rated average or bad in most of quality reports . And if you go to their forums, you will see how many people complain about many, many things. MINI COOPER :: North American Motoring - Stock Problems/Issues 2nd Gen Faults & Fixes - MINI2 - MINI Forum I was looking to buy one few years ago and gave up after reading forums.
