Sorry to be slow to post here! Cleverly tried to post a couple of times first and didn't read the instructions. Lesson learned.

Anyway! I recently bought a new-to-me 2009 MCS R56. I'd never been super into or excited about my own cars, and my main interest in them in general had been in vintage cars, but my previous useful but boring car was finally on its last legs and I started looking for something more fun, smaller, and more aesthetically pleasing (without the requirements in garage and time that an actual project car would bring).

So! Here I am, and I'm really enjoying the car, enjoying driving more than I ever have before, and am excited to have a car with a 'following' and a community like this of enthusiasts.

(I don't have any decent photos of the car yet, though)

 

Hi and welcome to the NAM family, phutterman!
Congrats on your Mini purchase.
Before doing any mods, make sure to do maintenance. 100% synthetic oil. You did not say what trans you have, but if it is a stick, change the oil with synthetic trans fluid, like Red Line or another like it.
Make sure to change the engine oil every 5K miles as the gen 2 Minis' have issues if you dont. (change the oil filter every time too!
Have fun with it! Meet other Mini folks!

 

Thank you!

I'm afraid it's actually an automatic (I know that doesn't feel quite proper for a car like this, and I do drive manual, but because realistically a lot of my driving ends up being in the traffic that is the bay area, I opted for the automatic). It's still way more fun than my last car (a very pedestrian early 2000's Mazda).

Definitely going to keep up on the maintenance in any case, and I think I'm going to take it by Bay Bridge Motors (who sound like a good shop, and they're actually basically down the street from me) for a once-over pretty soon to make sure there's nothing overdue or otherwise the matter with it.

 

Hey, If I was driving around San Fran, I would want an auto too! In the early 70s I had a 61 corvette and had to drive there often! What a total PITA!

 

Yeah, between the traffic and the hills, it's definitely a challenging environment for a stick.

Where, by the way, in Southern Oregon are you? I grew up in Modoc County (northeast-most county in CA) and Klamath Falls was - if not quite the big city - at least the next bigger place to go.

 

I live about 20 miles south west of Grants Pass. I live in the twisties, where these little cars shine!
Here is my daily:


06 MCS JCW

 

Nice!

So, the plot thickens. The dealer owed me a couple small fixes, but had been waiting on the parts (they'd managed to damage the hood latch showing it to me, and had promised to replace the armrest lid which wouldn't stay shut). They've finally got that, but a little before that, it had started rattling noticeably when very cold (which I associated with some colder/wetter weather but definitely noticed was a change).

Now that I've read more about it, the way it does it (rattles when cold, goes away when warmer and also over a certain rpm) sounds an awful lot like something wrong in the timing belt tensioner region.

Anyway, on Thursday last week I got the oil indicator which seemed pretty bad as I know maintaining the oil is super important (and also the dealer had changed it, so less than a month/1000mi on it). And of course I couldn't open the hood, because they hadn't fixed that yet, to check it/add to it before I could get it looked at. So I explained this to a local shop, who said they could squeeze me in to open the hood and check/change the oil. But on my bringing it by, the mechanic's response (on hearing the rattle) was essentially, "I'm not going to touch that, precisely since you can't open it, you should take it back to the dealer and (if you can) make them take it back."

Aside from not particularly wanting to, I'm pretty certain I can't, but I did take it straight to them and said I'm pretty sure something's seriously wrong here. (I was strictly outside their 30 day 'warranty' period, but it definitely started within that, and is a problem that wouldn't have occurred overnight) so I'm hoping at least I can get them to cover fixing it. No updates from them yet (left it with them Thursday). They're not a mini shop/specialist at all either, so I don't want them to (try) to do something they aren't capable of, but I also want them to fix it since I think/hope it's in the territory of their problem.

Anyway, at minimum I figure it's got an oil leak of some kind (which sounds like not a huge surprise) - but I'm wondering, if it lost enough, could that cause an otherwise not-bad timing chain tensioner to rattle?

It'd be lovely if it was just an oil problem and not a timing chain one. But if it needs a timing chain tensioner replacement, I think I'm ok with that (as it was fairly inexpensive) if not exactly excited. That said while there's a lot of stuff I'm willing and interesting to do/learn to do myself on this car, I'm definitely not up to doing that myself yet if ever.

 

These are known to have timing chain tensioner failures and also plastic guide issues. The tensioner is replaced through a cover near the oil filter area and the guides may need the front (on passenger side) removed to replace the plastic guides.
It is important to get a tested tensioner, as there are many new made ones, that are not tested and are shot from new.
In the oil filter area there is a blow off that can go bad and stay open, lowering the oil pressure to unsafe level.