Yesterday was not a good day for our CM.

Early in the morning I was driving about 35 mph, and without warning the engine completely shut down, and of course I was left with no power steering. Luckily I was able to get off the road and coast into a parking lot. Mini Roadside Service had my car towed to the nearest dealer.

The dealer kept the car about 6 or 7 hours and said they found that a fuse for the electronic fuel injection had blown, but they could not figure out why, except that the fuses are hand installed at the factory and it might have been incorrectly installed. They could find nothing else wrong other than the fuse itself.

We picked up the car at the dealer, and on our way home the same thing happened again! Mini again had our car towed back to the dealer, and it's still there. I called the SA and he could have not been more apologetic.

I understand that electrical issues can sometimes be difficult to diagnose. The SA said he has never seen this happen before. Has this happened to anyone else, and/or does anyone have any insight on this? Thanks in advance for your help.

 

Sucks man...keep us updated

 

A bad coolant temp sensor can give the engine a false overheating signal and shut it off (to prevent damage). I would have thought they'd have seen that when the scanned the error codes in the car, so it might be a dumb suggestion, but I figured I'd mention it, since the coolant temp sensor is a known issue.

 

The dealer still has the car, as they cannot figure out what's causing the fuse to blow. The SA called me this afternoon and mentioned that they replaced the fuse again with the same result, and that they are waiting for BMW to tell them what to try next. He was obviously frustrated...he said in such situations they communicate with the support people at BMW via email, and don't always receive quick answers. Sounds like the issue with our car is so unusual they just are not quite sure what to do next. I assume there must be a component or a wire causing a short, but it doesn't happen all the time (we were able to drive the car several miles before the engine shut down) Tippykayak, thanks for the idea, but they seem to know why the engine shuts down (because the fuel injection fuse blows). I would doubt that a bad coolant sensor would cause the fuse for the fuel injection system to blow. We are hoping to get a loaner car from the dealer tomorrow.

 

A bad coolant sensor would throw a code in the computer which the tech would have seen. I would think the first thing they would do is look for codes in the computer. I would hope. Something will turn up. I wish you the best of luck.

 

Yeah, when I spoke to him yesterday I think he did mention there were no stored codes. Thanks.

 

That sucks. Hope everything will be fixed soon. What did they give to drive as a loaner?

 

What year and miles?

 

I spoke to the SA in the last few minutes. They are awaiting direction from BMW, but he said even if they finish the repair today they want to keep the car and drive it to make sure the issue is resolved. They have a loaner for us that we will be picking up later today. I'm just happy that we are getting a loaner, and did not ask what it is, thanks.

 

2012 CMSA4, 5200 miles

 

The loaner car is a 2012 S Hardtop. Not bad, but not as nice as our CM.

 

I'm sorry that you're going through so much trouble. Just curious, how long did it take for roadside assistance to come?

 

Thanks. It appears what they do is to contact a local towing company while you are on the phone with them. In the first instance, I was told that the towing company would arrive at my location within 100 minutes, and that did happen. In the second instance, I was told that they would arrive within 50 minutes, and they met that commitment also. No doubt the response time depends on how busy the local towing company is. They also automatically call you back at the time the tow truck was scheduled to arrive to verify that in fact it did arrive.

 

Update...the dealer still has our car, tomorrow will be a week. BMW told them to replace something called an HDML pump that pressurizes the fuel tank and keeps the fuel from making a sloshing noise. The dealer has test driven the car several times without the fuse blowing, but BMW wants them to run some more tests before giving the car back back to us. BMW told the dealer that we are not the first to have this pump fail.

 

Shark,
My countryman has had this fail before I bought it also. I got a full copy of service records, and that was at around 8k miles car now has 28k and no more issues with that... However my high pressure fuel pump went out last week. So hopefully you won't have any issues with that

 

Thanks, good to hear they were able to make a permanent fix. Still no word on when we will get our car back, but then again I don't want to rush them...we want the repair done correctly as the engine shutting down without warning while driving is a serious safety issue.

 

They gave us the car back this evening. We made it home this time without having to call Roadside Assistance!

 

Nice

 

Hopefully all is well now. Happy motoring!

 

Well this time the repair lasted two weeks. Had to get towed in again (this is the 3rd time in 3 weeks!) this afternoon. This time it was more scary. I ended up being stuck in the middle of a busy road, and luckily two passersby were nice enough to help me push the car off the road.

At least Mini Roadside Service had a tow truck there in less than 30 minutes, but this is getting old. Ugh!

To be fair I can't say for sure it's the same problem again, but the symptoms seem the same (engine just quits while driving without warning). Actually I guess I might be even more concerned if it is a new issue because then you have to start to wonder what the next problem is going to be that leaves us stranded with this car.

And of course the dealer has no loaners available...

 

Ruh roh. Sounds like a lemon

 

This is the third time you have to bring the car back to the dealers with the same problem. Depending on your state, the car is considered a lemon.

 

What dealership are you working with?

 

Morristown. We really have no complaints with their service department (we had our old R53 serviced there several times too). I don't think they have treated us any different than if we had purchased the car there (we bought it elsewhere). Mini Roadside Assistance policy is to tow the car to the nearest dealer, and it just so happened that each time it has broken down they have been the closest.

They told me that the repair they made to the car the last time was at the direction of the Mini USA, so if it didn't work, I guess we can't blame the dealer.

 

The dealer called and they now have a loaner for us. No word on what's going on with our car yet.