Hello!
New to the Forum, and to MINI ownership. I had a 2006 Subaru Legacy wagon. I parked it in front of my workplace on Tuesday, Dec. 20. A few hours later, our neighbor (Who owns a car repair station) came in asking if the blue Subaru belonged to someone there. He confirmed that a Hit-and-Run driver had totalled my Subaru!

I found a 2003 MINI Cooper S on Craigslist Pittsburgh, and contacted the seller. He thought that the car had been sold. The next Monday, he messaged me to see if I was still interested. I went and looked at it, and it seemed like a good car. It had 195,362 miles, but ran strong and tracked straight. There was a little bit of rust around the right taillight, and the parking brake cables were bad, but other than that it looked pretty good. Heated leather seats, power sunroof, 15% Supercharger pulley, Borla exhaust.

I bought it last Tuesday, Dec 27. I drove it 74 miles between Tuesday and Wednesday. On the way home Wednesday night, it suddenly lost power, the check engine and EML lights came on, and it died. I had AAA tow it home, and after a week of fiddling with it, including replacing the throttle body, I towed it to the MINI dealership. I'm awaiting a prognosis, but it doesn't look good- it might be a broken timing chain. Just wondering, what will that repair cost? Thanks, everyone!

 

Assuming the belt and the crank dampener are ok, have you done a compression test?

///Rich

 

Welcome to NAM Robot and sorry to hear about the problems. If the timing chain went bad I think you would have heard some metallic and/or grinding noises, but that is certainly possible. I wonder about electrical and fuel injection, too, so I guess you'll just need to wait and hear from the dealer.

Let us know and we'll answer any questions we can.

Drive Hard. Drive Safe. Keep Grinning.

 

My previous post didn't post...
Towed the Mini to MINI of Pittsburgh. They put it on the computer and diagnosed multiple electrical problems. I asked them to do a compression test, since I had tried spraying starter fluid into it and it wouldn't even sputter.

$500 later, the diagnosis was a stretched timing chain. $1600 to replace, not including the electrical issues, which could be another $2000. (Oddly, the engine doesn't look like ANYTHING was removed and replaced, so how did they know the timing chain was bad?) Trade-in value at this point was quoted at $150-200. (I paid $3000 for the car.) I towed the car back home, bought a 2004 Cooper S with 104,000 miles, that had had a fire, for $1200, and am swapping engines and electrical components.

Following the "Get yourself out of a hole by continuing to dig downward" method.

 

So, the adventure continues!

I removed the engine from the 2004 MCS that had had a fire (White car/engine), and started working on it to swap parts over. When I dropped the oil pan, there was a huge block of ice around the crankshaft, and broken pieces of connecting rod and piston in the pan.

Uh, oh.

Looks like either they sprayed water on the fire while the engine was running (Not as likely, since it had extinguisher powder all over the outside), or someone blew the engine, then set the car on fire to cover for it.

Crap.

I dismantled the engine from my car (Grey car/engine), and found tiny valve-strike scratches on all the pistons. Liquid-tested the valves, and cyl 2 leaks. Also, the timing chain cover is broken, the chain guides are chewed up, and the culprit for all the problems was a bad chain tensioner.

After several weeks of work, I cleaned up the White head and installed it on the Grey engine with a new gasket/bolts, timing chain, sprocket, and tensioner. Reinstalled the engine in the Grey car, turned the key- nothing.

Found the un-connected ground strap, attached it, turned the key, and it STARTED!

IT'S ALIIIIVE!!

It sounded terrible, and had no power. Clutch wasn't working properly, and had a cracked bleeder on the slave, so I put a new one on. 8 hours, a half gallon of fluid, and the Master from the White car later, and the clutch was working again. Tracked down an air leak on the Supercharger intercooler gasket, and now it runs like a rocket. It had 16 Fault codes, which my Scangauge 2 can't clear, but the only one I believe is the downstream O2 Sensor fault- all the others are related to the engine failure.

Drove it 3 times, and all of a sudden the brakes go funny, and the brake light came on. Limped home, and found a blown left-rear line.

Discovered, after several hour's struggling with rusted fittings while lying on a cold barn floor, that the left and right lines have different fittings. Removed the line that connects to the ABS module from White car, bought new under-car lines, vacuum-bled them before connecting them, hooked everything up, and had a good, solid brake pedal.

For two pumps, then it went to the floor.

Blew the RIGHT rear line. Luckily, it didn't take as long to fix it, since I didn't even try to free the rusted fittings, instead removing the White car's lead line and replacing the under-car line with the one I bought before that had the wrong fitting.

Got to drive with the Sunroof open for the first time, since we had a nice day in PA. Even got all the speakers working again, which was just a loose connector on the Aftermarket stereo. I'm really glad I bought the white car, despite the bad engine, since I've already used more than its cost in parts. (Head, intercooler, timing cover, both axles, taillight, driver's seat, really nice rubber floor mats, clutch pedal/master, and some trim so far.)

Even with all its problems, I think I'm going to love this little car. It's a blast to drive, can park anywhere, and gets better gas mileage than my tired old Subaru (Which, conveniently, used the same size tires as the White car's wheels, so I have a full set to replace the snow tires with!) Hopefully my future adventures will be more driving, less lying on the floor yelling at stubborn fittings.

 

I really appreciate having your input- I used some of the techniques recommended in the tech articles, (And your timing chain kit) and got the Mini back on the road. Thanks for the help!

 

Kudos to you for sticking with it, Robotscarecrow!
Wishing you many miles of happy motoring adventures.

 

Awesome ending to a rather difficult start.

 

Very happy to hear this! Glad we were able to assist you in a time of need. If you ever need anything in the future please don't hesitate to let me know.

 

Hi and welcome to nam. I am so glad you got it going again!
Where's the pics?

 

Welcome to the world of MINI ownership - glad to see you've stuck with it. The early cars are a lot of fun.

 

What a start to a Mini relationship! Great write up to a horrible story, but a great effort and results for you and your Mini! So glad that it's running. Minis are worth the headaches and skinned knuckles, most of the time. Very cool that you stuck by your Mini. Congrats!

Post a picture of the resurrected MCS and the fireballed donor when you get the chance.