Looking for some trouble shooting advice, because I am 2000 miles away from home in a town hundreds of miles from a Mini dealership...

I drove the car in one day from Wisconsin to the end of Nebraska, no problem other running over a deer that had just been hit by the car in front of me (went over it, leaving a ton of fur stuck everywhere, but no damage and everything ran fine) . Next day through Colorado, over Loveland Pass, into Utah on I70, no problems - car ran fine for hundreds of miles, under load. Then after Green River, I70 pulls up steeply onto the Colorado Plateau and I let her fly, about half way up a sudden loss of power, back off throttle, comes back, then again, as I slow down and downshift to second on the side of the road, the car seemed to recover, and I crawled up to a scenic lookout.

Open hood, nothing, no codes in the Torque app, no warning lights. My initial analysis - fuel filter. Didn't keep up with the demand. So we drove from there gently, no more than 20mpg demand, light throttle. No problems for rest of day to the middle of Utah.


Today, started early, up and down basin and range mountains in the Utah and Nevada desert, always keeping it on relatively low load, no issues until late in the day when we came into Owens Valley CA. Downhill, into the lower elevations where it's 100F, we were running fine at first, no load on engine, coolant stable at 204-206. Pulled into hot rest area where we parked on totally black blacktop just cooking the car from below, 10 mins later left there and continued south at 65mph, but just a mile after that the car chugged again, 1 second about, regains power. We move at maybe 20% throttle and it does it again and again. 1 second or so totally no power, no warning lights, everything else runs fine, no code thrown, and it comes back and runs again.

Stopped in the next town, completely cooled the motor down to ambient temp with a water hose. Ran back up the valley to Bishop uphill in 100F and it worked fine, easy load. So we got a room here, go to the power wash, cool it down again, as we had to go up a side valley to a resort for a food drop. Also as a test to see if our "maybe it's heat soak and the fuel somehow over time gets too hot?" was close to right. So we drive up 3000+ feet from the valley, easy, but pretty high throttle and load to get up there. All fine to about 8500 feet, 1 mile from road end, when in second gear at 25mph, it cut out again. It was just 72F up there, and the engine back seemed cool except for the coil area.


We drove a little more after the stop and it did it again just a quarter mile up the road. Pulled over, even saw a red check engine light this time, but Android app still can't scan any codes. Stopped engine. start engine, light gone. Still can't read any code. We decide to abort and drive back down. No problem 15 miles more or less rolling down the mountain, but in town the car still feels like it's running crappy from a stop light in 2nd gear.

Talked to a guy here at the motel who suggested water in fuel? How could that do what we experienced?

Could the coil be bad, and progressively getting worse, heat and load related?

We are stuck 2000 miles from home and it's hot here, and we are surrounded by steep mountain roads in any direction. Any ideas how to trouble shoot this are appreciated.


Peter

 

Exactly what town are you in?

 

Check damper(crank pulley) kinda sounds like yours is slowly starting to do the well documented implode. Just my guess anyway.

 

Bishop, CA - eastern Sierra. Vegas closest dealer, but no way am I heading through Death Valley. Reno is 202 miles north of here.

 

how can I check this without getting it into a shop? What am I looking for in terms of symptoms. I know a little bit about it, but not enough to go out there and diagnose it. Would I be able to drive slowly for a while, let it cool, then drive again, slowly, then again? Or is it not temperature related?


If it was just load related, I would have had problems on my last run up the mountains much sooner in the steep high load ramps when the engine was really working hard, but it cut out later.


It never did anything like this in local driving up to 150 miles, even much more spirited driving.


I'll search the site for more info. Hope the internet won't crap out again, because it is doing that here every 5 minutes...

 

I can't help with the actual problem, but member XSMINI is in Bishop. He might have suggestions for a local shop so I would PM him.
If you are planning on driving to Reno stay away from the dealer. They've only been around for a couple of years so zero experience with the R53 and they were terrible with warranty issues on my R60 - one of the many reasons why it's gone. There are some independents that seem decent, but I have never had work done on the MINI here, only in the SF Bay Area where there are absolute master mechanics for these cars. PM me if you need basic tools / place to crash / beer / wine if you are stuck in Reno. I am in town until Friday morning then back to SF. Reno is second home so only basic tools, jack, and ramps if you need them.

 

This would be my recommendation for a shop in Reno area.
http://www.renorennsport.com/


followed by:
http://www.bavarianautohaus.com/


both get busy so ability for a drop in might play a role in your choice - if you decide to head up to Reno from Bishop.

 

thanks for the Reno tip. I pm'd XSMINI, hoping to hear about local shop. San Francisco is so far west, I'd rather turn back and limp my way back home, but when I hear imploding damper, obviously that may be a stupid thing to do. Actually going anywhere may be stupid at that point. Thing is, I can't even diagnose the damper without a shop to get the wheel off, etc - nor can I explain why it would have caused the type of power loss I experienced at only a few occasions over the last two days. When the car is "fine" I can step in the gas, 100% throttle and it runs great, but then it barely kept moving after being parked hot. 2 hours later it pulled up most of the mountain road here to 8600 feet, nice and cold up there, but it cut out there, too, repeatedly, not in the 95 degree desert where the road was steeper and I was really pulling.






And thanks for the offer to use tools. I brought some, forgot the belt tool, which was dumb, I guess, but unless I know what to fix, there's no point to drive up there. It's in the same direction I didn't dare to drive this afternoon - right across Deadman Summit towards Mono lake on 395...

 

SF is a long drive from Bishop, so yeah, not a good number 1 option for you.


I hope XSMINI has a good recommendation but if not, Reno is not that far and it's a beautiful drive from Bishop up 395 to Reno. I see plenty on first gen MINI's around town so I assume the two shops I listed fix a fair share of them and would get you going. There is also a large generic shop that fixes BMW's regularly on the south side of town as a third option. They told me they had a BMW tech back when I used to take my Jeep GC there, but I have not been there in years. They did good work and pricing for Jeep work was more than fair.


PM me if I can help in any way.

 

Hey there- I responded to you're pm. Sorry about your issues. To me it almost sounds like plug wires. I've had similar problems in the past that were fixed with new plugs and wires. Unfortunately I am in Montana this week, otherwise I could swap some wires with you and see if that helped. The lower part of the hill west of bishop you talked about is part of my daily drive, and can be quite a car killer. BMW/ MINI do their testing twice a year on that hill.

As for your crushing temps of 204 - 206 that seems a little high. I only see that when I am getting on it going up a long grade. I generally run 195-198 up and down the valley. May be time for a thermostat, but not related to the issues you are currently having.

As I said in the pm give European Auto a shot, and give me a call if I can help at all.

Nik

 

"Red check engine light"....
Do you remember which red light? Temp, or voltage or oil psi? Kinda useful info...

 

my temps always were reading that high (in Torque app, seems high to me, too. my Tundra never is over 190). The car has never been lower, nor higher. 199 to 206, stabilizing around 204, cold or hot, AC on or off. We tried without AC and with, but had problems either way. Seems to be unrelated to coolant temp.


Will check with European Motors tomorrow. At least to get some feedback in person. Thank you for all the help so far. Going to Reno is a trip I may tackle if I can't make any progress here. Right now I don't feel like driving up any long steep mountains unless the car is stone cold and it is cool morning or night, at least I seem to have more success going distance when things aren't hot.


Could plug wires do this? They fix themselves with a little cool down? I had wires fail on a Eclipse many years ago and it was much rougher running, very sensitive to throttle cold or hot. Maybe a different failure than this. My power loss is total, silent, like no fuel, motor rolling, then I back out of throttle and bingo, motor is back on. But once it begins doing this, I need to back off all the time, and it keeps doing it. Let car cool down totally, so far it has worked and given me some range.

 

It was a red light on the right side of the big speedo with the car hood and rear hatch open. Not sure what that is called. It was on the very last time before we turned around on the mountain. It never left anything in the ECU for the Torque app to retrieve. Restarted car and light was gone. also not found as stored ECU fail code.

 

never mind the red light - could be we already had cracked a door open...

 

a few more pieces of information - when the motor cuts out it is a complete 4 cyl shutdown, not a sputter, not a wind down. Ruled out fuel that way. The parts we are looking at replacing now are coil, wires and plugs. All ordered and coming in by tomorrow 11am. The European Auto owner thought it could also be crank position sensor related, but that should have dropped my tach needle back harshly, but I saw rpm's. when it cuts out the rpm's drop as the car slows, but still showing steady. So it's probably the result of 25k mile old plugs and too much resistance overheating the coil, failing on load and high temps. Just hoping it's a fix this easy

 

Check the terminals on your battery..

 

Surprised the euro shop guy did not know the mini shares a coil with other makes...(a few asian ones)...
It is commonly stocked at many bigger box auto stores....wires likewise can be tested or just replaced in minutes...
Hang in there....it can be frustrating....
A full loss of power with no lights and a coast down DOES IMO sound like it might be a coil....but does not explain the overheating...
The crank damper is EASY to look at...but usually this failure WILL give you codes/lights followed by an overheating situation and a voltage light....

 

Both battery terminals are solid and clean. Newer battery from 2011 in there. Never lost electrical power when it cut out. Don't think there's an issue with that, but batteries can be weird.

 

he said "looks like a Subaru coil" so he did recognize the similarities.

I have one I bought this morning at O'Reilly, but it was their cheapest one. All others are special order and more than 3 days away. He sad he only sees two Minis once in a while. So not really his specialty. He is getting a coil from his supplier that is OEM, whatever that's worth. I am keeping the other in the box until tomorrow. Bosch wires as well.

with overheating, do you mean my engine? It always runs at 204-206 stable, even if it is 60F outside. Turning on AC or not, it was the same here. It is a bit high, but not unusual, nor did it fluctuate over the entire 2000 miles.

However, when I mentioned the heat - that's when the car was run all day long, parked on dark black sun backed pavement too hot to touch or stand on with shoes for extended period. It sat for 10 mins, we drove off back on the highway, and once in 6th gear, it cut out. Not a big load, but following all the acceleration and after all the header and pavement heat could heat soak the engine bay. The coil gets very hot up there, and I read that even new coils have issues with more than 250F - and I am quite sure it was well over 250F on top of that engine block at that moment.

So if heat can impair a coil, it still explains all the moments of power loss. If heat is irrelevant, then I am stumped.

 

I'm going to take a stab and say to check the T-MAP sensor on front of the motor. Not the MAP sensor near the thermostat but it is a possibility too.

Mine crapped out and crippled the car. It would run in limp mode for a short distance and die. It would idle rough and die.

Here a location pic -

 

The coil could be it, definitely worth a try. It's not the plug wires because one bad wire would cause a misfire and likely a CEL but would not shut the whole engine down.
I had a bad coil on my Subaru, which as said is pretty much the same part, it just caused a misfire and made me fail emissions testing. Didn't kill the motor completely. Although it was never subjected to intense heat like you have, it was also 17 years old.
The issue could be the ECM too. It gets pretty hot where it lives. Unfortunately that is an expensive harder to get part. You would want to swap to a known good one to see if it fixes you up before committing to buying one.

 

Just one thing to note if the coil pack is not OEM even the one I got from OEM bimmer parts was not really OEM...the stock bolts won't work. Just calling this out...they have a sleeve around them.

 

Did you by chance suck in a bunch of deer fur into your air filter?....lol. Just a thought not to leave any stone unturned.

 

Did you get the issue resolved, I am really curious to know what the root cause of this was?

 

I just got back home - we went on a 24 day hiking trip so I could not respond until now.


Problem never resolved. Had to limp it home over those high mountain passes. We replaced coil plugs and wires and it appeared to work for the remaining mountain passes before our hike. When driving home, we had it begin all over a few hours into the drive when we hit the first long passes in Nevada.


I am guessing now it is fuel related. I've had enough long uphills to experiment with the throttle position and whenever I ran the car slower and in lower gears with revs low enough to keep the mpg's above 20, we did ok.


More on the symptoms when it happens: it is a complete 4 cylinder shutdown, no rough running, just dead for a few seconds, but if I stay in gear, it'll refire in 2-4 seconds. If I upshift or clutch, it'll stay dead. no warning lights, all other lights and gauges stay on, res are indicated as they drop (crank position sensor working fine).


Full throttle at the time when it begins to cut out doesn't change anything (reset ECU for elevation, at least that's what the mechanic told me to do). Once it begins to cut out, it will happen again very soon after the first time, then increasingly more often, even in lower gears, until the vehicle is stopped and idles for a while. Once parked for 2 minutes, I can drive again for a few miles uphill before it'll begin again, unless I get over the hill. Short downhill runs in the middle of climbs will extend the window the car runs fine.


Once out of Denver heading east, we never experienced another engine shutdown, even on steeper hills. It'll be very hard to find out if the problem has been fixed without driving back to Colorado.


Could it be a clogged fuel filter? Does the ECU shut down the engine before it begins to run rough to protect it from a lean condition? It seems like there is a reservoir of fuel to work with, but extended runs at higher throttle positions will deplete it and then it'll just cut out until there's fuel available again.


Since the car has now 90k on it, the fuel filter will be replaced anyway, but it would be nice to know if the symptoms I described have been experienced by others with fuel filter issues.