The JD Power results are in for the long term reliability of 2002 US cars and trucks and the results for MINI, aren’t good. MINI finished 3rd from the bottom with 383 problems per 100 cars. Interestingly they finished right next to Volkswagen who unlike MINI, had no first model year excuses.

While some of this may be due to MINI owners being unusually attentive to detail, I can’t believe that would account entirely for such a bad showing. As someone who went from a very early 2002 MINI to a mid-year 2005, I can personally attest to the huge improvements MINI has made in response to issues that had to have been obvious to MINI engineers. However, the issues that my ’02 MINI did have were all relatively minor and certainly nothing to cause serious alarm. Various rattles, a poorly attached plastic trim piece, the familiar steering click, and a couple of minor recalls were really the only things I had to worry about in three years of ownership.

It will be interesting to see in three years how the 2005 MINI compares to these results.

You can check the full ranking below:

[ JD Power Long Term Reliability / 2002 models ] JD Power