NEW YORK – For Mini, the maker of sporty, if sometimes eccentric, pint-sized hatchbacks, landing at the bottom of another closely watched vehicle quality study this week is almost a point of pride.

FILE/The Associated Press

Mini Coopers often fall short in quality studies, but their sales are strong and parent company BMW AG is planning to open 17 new dealerships across the U.S, bringing its American total to 100.

Mini says it deliberately engineers quirks into its cars, like oddly placed dashboard controls and unusual interior lighting, that drag down its ratings in such studies. But Jim McDowell, vice president of Mini's U.S. operations, said those design features are central to the brand's personality.

"Mini has some idiosyncrasies that we engineer into our cars," said McDowell. "We want to make our cars remarkable little cars."

If that sounds like spin, consider that Mini has been among a handful of beneficiaries in the crisis rocking the auto industry. The carmaker owned by Germany's BMW AG has seen sales fall over the last year but has snapped up market share from its bigger rivals. Monday, it announced plans to open 17 new dealerships across the country, bringing its U.S. total to 100, while Detroit automakers are shuttering locations.

Still, Mini has been dogged by par- to sub-par performance in recent quality studies. On Monday, the automaker finished dead last in J.D. Power & Associates' annual initial quality study. The marketing and consulting company ranked 37 nameplates based on car buyers' responses about their first 90 days of ownership. Toyota's Lexus brand placed first.

In the same study last year, Mini was second from the bottom, followed only by Chrysler's Jeep brand, and it came in below average in J.D. Power's study of long-term reliability this year. But Consumer Reports placed Mini's vehicles slightly above the middle of the pack in its annual reliability survey published in April.

Dave Sargent, J.D. Power's vice president of automotive research, said the firm does not reveal the problems owners reported with individual brands or cars. But the top five problems reported in the overall study were wind noise, air conditioner or heater control problems, interior scuffing, audio control problems and brake noise.

In other words, the problems that many car owners are reporting these days are relatively minor and often concern oddities that perturb drivers rather than fundamental defects with the performance of the car.

"The term low quality or lowest in quality is like saying the poorest person living in Beverly Hills," said Karl Brauer, editor in chief of the auto Web site Edmunds.com. "I think the differences in the best and worst cars are, in the real-world experiences of most customers, almost imperceptible."

McDowell attributed Mini's poor performance in J.D. Power's most recent study to design quirks like the windshield wiper control. In the Mini, it's a button that presses rather than a knob that turns. Its cars feature adjustable ambient light colors, not an option you're likely to find in your standard Dodge Ram pickup.

Sargent said frustration with unusual parts or features is common when vehicles like the Mini are designed and produced overseas for foreign tastes, then imported to the U.S.

"Some of the things that appeal to European consumers don't necessarily have the same appeal to U.S. consumers," Sargent said.