I"m new to the MINI WORLD, love the car so for. Have a 2011 MINI S R56 with N18. I"m needing to replace the thermostat, it has the original thermostat in it. Have to replace it with an updated model with a new wiring adapter harness, the new adapter harness has 2 plus on it, but how do I plug in the auxiliary fan switch??? I have a Bentley manual, but it says nothing about it, can't find anything online either.

 

are you sure you bought the correct part?

 

I did this on an N18 at the beginning of October. The harness connects to 2 respective plugs on the new thermostat and they only fit one way. When you remove the old thermostat there is a thermocouple probe (?) plugged into it with a wire and another plug/wire (IIRC) that both join at a connector that leads off to wherever. I just plugged the new harness into this connector and all seems good. We flushed the system twice with distilled water and added coolant although I only got about a gallon of coolant in after bleeding. My son drives the car mostly and so I had him monitor temps carefully through the OBDLink device and it got to a steady 102C. I'm not sure if the fan has come on as I haven't been able to monitor that.

Something else I found that I haven't seen mentioned. There's a tab sticking up on the thermostat outlet that connects to the crossover pipe. Part of the wiring mass that runs all over the top of the thermostat was clamped to this tab. Hard to see how it worked but seemed to be a metal clamp with plastic outside so we pried it open to get it off and pressed it back into place.

Now having said all that about 3 weeks later I noticed a coolant leak, but upon investigating found it on the passenger side. This left me with a dilemma - is it the crossover pipe leaking at the water pump or the water pump itself. After much contorting and a failed visit to a supposed mechanic I'm 99% sure it's the water pump. So another repair coming...

cheers
MacMini34

 

We flushed the system twice with distilled water and added coolant although I only got about a gallon of coolant in after bleeding. My son drives the car mostly and so I had him monitor temps carefully through the OBDLink device and it got to a steady 102C.





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