Travelling on the M25 at 9am lots of traffic, sudden and increasing knocking noise. Indicated, changed lane and decreased speed but within seconds there was a bang and the engine light came on. Engine stopped, but luckly managed to pull onto the hard shoulder. Car was covered in oil around the sides and bumper. AA towed car to garage. Timing Chain Tensioner had failed so they carried out a compression test to check damage, which showed a failure on 1 of the cylinders. Thinking this could be fixed they removed the exhaust manifold and found that the bottom end was completely ruined! I purchased the car from new, now has 46,000 miles on the clock and mainly used for local journeys, first three years BMW maintained and then well maintained by local BOSCH service centre. It was only in the BMW service garage a few weeks ago for a recall on the turbo collant pump. I have found lots of mini owners in the US with similar issues. Any more in the UK? If so please post. We need to get BMW to accept there is an issue and recall. The mini cost me £22k and is now worth £0. CONSUMER ADVICE? LEGAL ADVICE? HELP!!!

Hello everyone, I am new to CAG, have read lots of the existing postings and have found them very useful so have decided to take the plunge! I like a lot of people have fallen into the vicious circle of pay day loans, after months of juggling them i now have 7 PDL's, been taking out more to pay each other off and now have a total debt of circa 4K. In January I took the decision not to continue the juggling and don't want to get further into debt so stopped paying, cancelled my Debit card, and contacted the lenders directly to request that I set up a repayment plan directly with them (I did look at Debt management companies but decided against using them as there fees are too high and involving them will delay the repayment process and cost more!) Anyway the majority of my lenders have been cooperative and have agreed to my pro-rata repayment plans and I habe set up Standing orders to start paying at the end of February, when I next get paid. However Minicredit have been the most difficukt to deal with, I have been e-mailing them to request setting up a repayment plan and at first they told me that they dont do them etc. But I have percevered by contacting them via their web site as the request and they have come back to me with the following response, which I am looking for feedback and advice on, please: "In order to discuss a long term payment arrangement via our debt recovery partners please follow the hardship procedure. Microcredit Ltd has activated a Hardship application on minicredit online account. Please log in to Your account follow the instructions and send the application back to us." "In order to apply for Hardship status of your account, please follow the instructions below: 1) Please fill in your current income details. 2) Please fill in your current expenditure details. 3) Please fill in your creditor details 4) Please review the details. 5) Click Print the form 6) Sign, date and fax the form to 020 7138 2919 7) Our team will need to assess the proposal. You will be contacted by our Hardship team member within 5 working days to come to a mutually agreeable solution. "To discuss Your monthly payments and the repayment plan balance please contact us on 08718903015 from 8AM to 8PM Monday to Friday, 9AM to 8PM on Saturday and 9AM to 5PM on Sunday. We may require documentary evidence of your financial difficulties. Please bear in mind that the status of the account will not be changed until an assessment has been made by our Hardship team. All the charges will be added until full repayment has been received or until the Hardship team member has contacted You and set up an agreement. Microcredit Ltd is not able to stop the automated debit attempts so if You have the possibility then cancel the card that is registered in the system. Microcredit Ltd is able to provide our Hardship customers three possibilities. The first option is a settlement. The settlement means that when You contact our Customer support we are able to reduce the current outstanding balance and waive some of the failed debit attempt fees. The settlement must be paid over the phone during the phone-call with a debit card. The second option we are able to provide You is a settlement plan. We provide all our clients 120 days from the due date to make payments of any amount towards their outstanding balance. You would need to make at least one payment a month towards the balance. Before the 120th comes days You would need to make a full and final settlement offer. Microcredit Ltd will then overlook all the payments we have received and they will be taken into consideration while calculating the settlement. The reasonable settlement amount must cover the daily interest for every day our funds have been used, the loan principal and the two penalties for breaking the Loan agreement. The interest is 1% of the Loan principal per day. We are able to decrease some of the failed debit attempt fees. Microcredit does not provide You the dates nor the amounts when You need to make the payments. The partial payments possibility is available 24/7 on mini credit online account under 'Repayment' section. The most important part is that at least once a month a payment of any amount must be made. The loan should be cleared latest by the 120th overdue day. The settlement can be discussed at any point when You have a larger amount available to offer as a full and final settlement. The third option is a payment plan. The payment plan means that we will add the default date interest to the loan principal, the two penalties for breaking the Loan agreement (£80.00) and the decreased debit attempt fees and forward the account to our debt recovery partner from the beginning of the next month. The default is marked on the credit reference but You will be able to make the payments on a monthly basis to clear the balance." All advice from CAG member gratefully received! Regards Zohan1967

Hi everyone, I am aware there is another older thread in regards to minicredit and that there is a wealth of information contained in it, having just read through, but I am after a bit more help if possible and what steps to take next. I too have made the mistake of using mincredit and defaulting - here is a summery of my original loan, date applied and when it was owed and how much I currently owe today (less than 2 months after defaulting) Order date Amount applied Current balance Due date balance Due date Status 2012-10-24 £100.00 £714.00 2012-11-19 debt collection I have emailed them 3 times using the automated email link on their site and received no response, they have called several times and left voicemails. How do I proceed from here? What would you suggest should I do first and then from then on? This is causing me many a sleepless night, I am astounded that 100 (of which I only got 80!) has turned into 714 in 6/7 weeks! Please help!

I had a loan from these people of 100 . I had problems so emailed mini credit to explain, umsympathetic , rude, brash on the phone, anyhow as time went on i simply told them i wasnt able to afford and so on goes all the fines etc, MAY I REMIND MINI CREDIT EMPLOYEES THAT A PERSON IN DEBT IS NOT A CRIMINAL !!!!!! Anyhow my bank card was changed and so mini had been trying to claim off my old card , but, because the funds werent there 100 turned into 320.50 Mini credit never had my new card details but the next payment on my income i am left with 6 pounds as they had taken the total ammount out , i was in receipt of a hardship form from them but i returned it to wrong email address although i still have a copy of what i wrote. does anyone now know how i can proceed, I feel that due to the umpteen emails i sent and phone calls prior and during , to knowing that id be in difficulty that i told these people about I see it as they should of worked with me as they have a record of them sending me a hardship form on the 30 th july. Do i really have to hire a muck spreader and pay a visit ;-p jk