Several days ago I drove off in my '09 S Coupe. A few blocks from home as we headed up a hill, the engine lost power and a scary engine light came on. Yikes! It only has 5000 miles! Went quickly home and called Concord Mini. By early afternoon it was loaded onto a car carrier and headed down the road. A pretty sinking feeling about our new car. The Concord dealership was great in keeping us up to date, but they could not diagnose the problem immediately. Within a day they were saying "Maybe a turbo." Later it was "We will need to disassemble quite a bit to get to it." "We are checking with more Mini corporate experts." Oh, no!

Made an additional call to the very helpful Jessica in Service, planning to speak to the highest level I could reach. Instead, Jessica said "You won't believe this story!" Mechanics had opened the air filter box and found it full of bird seed. There was so much that it had choked out any air intake. What??? No wonder we had no power!

Why? I have several bird feeders and raccoons had been knocking down the feeders, so I started putting the feeders in the garage every night. We were gone for 2 weeks and apparently field mice had gotten in the garage, taken the seed and stored it in a new nest--our air filter box! What a surprise to the mechanics and everyone at Concord Mini. They cleaned it up beautifully and drove it back to us in Santa Cruz, no charge. Great job by James, Service Manager, Jessica in Service, and Danny Andrade in Sales.

We now have a new storage spot for our bird feeders.

 

Not the first time I've heard of mice living in the engine bay. Seems like a good excuse to get a cold air intake, the conical filter would prevent something like the mouse nest from choking the engine.

 

Very interesting story, glad it turned out well.

 

well that proves it.

all the people that said I have squirrels under the hood are wrong.

if the Mini was indeed squirrel powered, your situation would have resulted in an increase in performance!

 

I hate meeces to pieces

 

Wow! There are lots of squirrels around here. I wonder what will happen if they try storing nuts in my engine.

 

Glad to hear you're back on the road. My mom is in Boulder Creek, and I have to clean out the interior fan on her Civic once a year, as the critters keep stuffing it with leaves and insulation...
Welcome to NAM!

 

I'm not surprised, but glad to know that Mini of Concord has good service. We got ours there with Danny and have to agree he was awesome.

 

Woooooooow. Is it okay that I laughed a little?! I'm glad it was found and diagnosed. I think the only nut in my car is the one driving it, but I'm going to check now!!

 

Oh....My....Gosh!!! hahahahahahahaha I'm glad that all is ok!

 

On the plus side, you can also be very thankful that it was just the birdseed causing the problem and not some poor mouse that got sucked into the works. That would not have been a pretty picture for either your MINI or the mouse.

 

That is a pretty crazy story, I can just imagine the look on the technicians' faces when they opened the air filter and saw a big pile of bird seed. Glad all is well!

 

I guess there is always gonna be something new comming up.