Hi all. I have been pulling my hair out trying to figure out what is going on with my wife's 2007 Cooper S. It has around 72,000 miles on the clock and recently started burning oil and has a lot of white smoke pouring out the tailpipe at idle or when accelerating from a stop (not quickly, normal acceleration).

We went on a long trip this weekend and I noticed that when we were stopped at a stop light we were getting white smoke out of the exhaust. It would come and go and the car threw two fault codes : P013A and P129D. I decided to check it out when I got home since I had no other real options. While maintaining any amount of speed it goes away, but returns at idle. It also burned about a Qt of oil in 600 miles. The smoke doesn't smell like coolant and the coolant level has remained the same. The smoke does smell like the car is running rich, but thats about it. It is pure white not with a blue tint to it as I would expect with burning oil. It is not leaking oil that I can see, and there is some in the intake piping, but nothing severe for a turbo car with no catch can. I have not pulled the plugs yet as my socket is not a deep enough deep well. The oil is not milky so it looks like no water has gotten in.

I know it was long winded, but I wanted to throw out as much info as possible. I can't find much info on the Codes either, so any help at all is appreciated. I am thinking turbo seals but am open to suggestions.

Thanks for you time in advance!

 

I don't have info on the codes, but if you're truly burning oil, the PCV system could be the issue. Of course, the PCV valve is integrated into the valve cover and is not a serviceable part. Hopefully it is something that simple and not something very bad like a headgasket Time to take it into a mechanic for more diagnosis...

 

Your code.
P129D would be IMO the charge air temperature/pressure sensor sounds faulty or inlet pressure sensor on intake manifold. Just my opinion from your descriptions.
P013a-o2 Sensor 1/2 Slow Response - Rich To Lean so an o2 sensor is bad or going bad again IMO.
Could be injectors being stuck open causing it to run rich.

The white smoke still would indicate coolant issues. You really need to monitor your coolant and maybe get a pressure test done.
Look in the coolant overflow and see if there is oil residue in it. Also look on the oil dipstick and see if you have coolant residue there.
You might have a small crack in the head or the head gasket is going.

Put some newspaper or cardboard under the car overnight and see if anything is there in the morning. __________________

 

Look at the inside of your oil filler cap. Do you see traces of chocolate milkshake looking stuff?

 

When you get the plugs out, run a compression test as well. Hopefully the numbers will be good.

Usually when there's enough fuel coming out the exhaust for it to look like white smoke, the exhaust smells strongly of fuel. You said it didn't smell like coolant, so presumably you would have noted if it smelled of anything else odd like fuel.

So chances are reasonable that, even if it doesn't look particularly blue, it could be oil.

How easy is it to inspect the turbo in these motors? The seals on the shaft of some (older, at least) cars can leak and let oil into the intake. Not sure if the MINI is prone to that at all, though.

If it is oil, check the PCV system out as well as you can. Because if neither it nor the turbo are the problem, then it is likely to be something internal to the motor itself. Rings, head gasket, valve guides and seals, etc. And that can be quite expensive to fix.

 

Getting it pressure tested tomorrow. No oil in the coolant overflow or coolant in the oil.

Hope it is just a gasket and no the head. Don't know any machine shops here in Germany that are reasonable.

 

Nope. No water/coolant in the head that I can see.

 

It seems like the engine is running quite rich, though not to the point where I would say the fuel smell was really strong. The smoke goes away for the most part when any amount of throttle is applied above idle.

The turbo is right up front and I didn't notice any shaft play that could be causing the problem. Doesn't mean the seals are not going however. I will have to take a closer look while I am pressure testing the coolant system.

There was some oil when I disconnected the PCV line from the intake nothing major though.

 

That's normal.

If you disconnect the MAF sensor, what happens to the smoke?

 

No change in the smoke when the MAF is unplugged.

 

The coolant system passed the pressure test. It didn't bleed off any pressure. So I am pretty sure the head and head gasket are good.

I did notice that there was a small puddle of oil under the front side of the car. I put it up on ramps and noticed that after running it for about a min and shutting it down there was oil dripping down the downpipe. I took off the heat shield and felt around and there is oil on the underside of the turbo, but the front lines look ok. If the turbo blew, would that cause the smoke? Just a thought.

 

Is the car feeling underpowered? Any siren-like noises coming from the turbocharger?

If unplugging the MAF didn't eliminate the white smoke and the pressure test was fine it seems strange that you've still got symptoms.

You sure it's white smoke and not blue?

 

It is white for sure. I could take pics if needed.

It is my wifes car and I don't drive it much. It feels underpowered to me but that could be because I am used to driving my stage 3 SRT-4. She does not seem to notice, but I would say that it is. Another thing that makes me believe the turbo is shot.

 

I will disregard the color of the smoke as I have encountered numerous times where the color of the smoke was not stated correctly or simply a result of something else going on. Since I am not there, I will not use the color as info. Oil consumption however, I will. How hard is the oil filler cap to remove with the engine running. Look at the hose coming off the back left of the valve cover going to the bottom of the intake when you take the cap off. It should move slightly when removing the oil filler cap, due to vacuum relief. But the cap should not be way too easy or difficult to remove. If you have either, this is a sign of a faulty Crankcase ventilation valve in the calve cover. You can also disconnect the hose from the valve cover and see if there is pooling oil in the pipe end on the valve cover. The other suggestion I would have to you is MAKE SURE IT'S CONSUMING and not leaking. High pressure injector can produce white smoke if the adaptation values are high enough telling the engine it needs more fuel. If your pre-cat O2 sensor is going bad and telling the engine to add fuel, don't discount a small amount of smoke to be simply compensation from the engine fuel supply. Let me know what you find.

 

Hey I was wondering if you ever resolved your problem. I am going through the same thing.


Thanks.

 

It ended up being the turbo. I replaced it as well as upgrading the oil feed and return lines and now everything works great. If you have any other questions I would be happy to help. I did the job myself in a day.

 

Were there any mechanical indications that it was the turbo? Noises, etc? Or how did you come to that conclusion?

 

There was a significant amount of play in the impeller shaft. No noticeable sounds that I could hear.

 

Interesting. Thanks. Did you need to disconnect anything to try to see the amount of play? I just noticed a white smoke today and I'm trying to debug where it's coming from. I'm going to try all the suggestions in this thread and see where I can go with this before I start going to mechanics and so on...

 

You can disconnect and remove the air inlet from the turbo and reach inside. Check for play both by pushing the shaft up and down and pulling it in and out. The major thing you need to check for is the smell of your exhaust. It is sweet and smells like coolant then it's a head gasket, not the turbo.

 

Hmm. I don't think it was sweet. It smelled burned (which is why I got sort of worried), it was white, and I couldn't quite replicate it easily - it popped up at idle, and then not at all, and then once during acceleration, and then not at all. Now I can't quite seem to replicate it. I feel like my oil's gone down a bit though - I had it at half the dipstick and I feel like it dropped a notch (using the Craven one). All this is somewhat speculative because I wasn't paying close attention to the whole thing until I saw smoke, though.

 

It does sound like you are burning oil. I would check the turbo for play. It doesn't burn much oil for there to be smoke.

 

hi all, so now i have the same smoke traffic light stop and then bunch of it. loosing oil about every 7-800 miles i was told it is normal with cooper, mine is 2009 MCS all my mods for now is the suspension and just added typhoon cold air.love the car but its been the usual money pit..lol , no power loss it runs very strong, no whining noise.

 

How much oil is it using in that mileage interval? Neither of the models are supposed to use that much oil, but hey, who needs a quality engine in cars nowadays?

It doesn't take more than one time of running the car low on oil or broken down oil to do do severe damage to the valve guide seals, piston rings, turbo bearings, etc and develop large oil consumption problems.

Chances are that if you're using oil at that alarming of a rate you're points of failure are slimmed down to: rings, turbo, or valve guide seals (but probably all of the above in many cases).

 

I had the car at my mini specialist on Wednesday for oil change and had him check everything out, we did full compression test and all cylinders were good, but he found a lot of oil in the vacuume hose, I was told that we have to change the valve cover it is letting a lot of oil in the turbo maybe a bad pcv valve.
Ben
There are no loss of coolent, turbo inlet has lots of oil in there. No milky residue on oil fill cap, no water on plugs,so I really don't think it is a head.