Haven't posted in a while but thought I'd share my recent engine light situation. Background: Purchased our 2012 (in November 2011) new as a second car and dog hauler. Put a lot of miles on it, primarily highway miles, with 66,000 miles on the clock. For the past month or so, the engine light has been coming on intermittently - illuminating about 30% of the time.

Eleven days ago took it to the dealer to see what fault codes the computer was throwing off. They gave me a loaner with only 15 miles on the odometer and off I went. Two days later I got the call...turbocharger was shot, the vanos solenoid shot and the valve cover gasket needed to be replaced along with a couple of other minor repairs. Total estimate: $6,920! Calmly (as I could) talked with the service advisor...telling him that it was only 7 months out of warranty, maintained better than "by the book," etc. He said that he'd talk with MINI corporate and see if there was anything they could do.

Meanwhile, I started to look for a rebuilt used engines and just replace the whole thing. Prices were around $3000 with a one-year warranty. So, that was a viable option... Several days later, heard back from my SA and MINI was going to help! Long story short, I'm out the door with a repair bill of $1,580. Expensive, yes, but a LOT better than almost $7000!

 

I guess that is a good result. Hopefully I won't go through the same, now of course I'm nervous and thinking maybe I'll trade it in after 50K or so.

Why did you consider a used engine when it was the Turbo, seemed kind of pricey quote for what they were talking about or was the entire engine going to be done?

 

you were still within the 4 year warranty period but 16,000 miles over the mileage limit...

 

I'm driving a 2012 CM S too. Yikes! Nowhere near as many miles, but I'll be sure to bring this up with the service dept. when I go in next month. Turbo, vanos solenoid, and valve cover gaskets going out all together sounds more like a systems problem, than an issue with individual parts. Did they mention anything about a suspected culprit that caused this cascading effect of failures? And $6,920 sounds insanely high, even with labor, for replacing those parts

 

Minnie, I considered replacing the entire engine only because it was cheaper than the repairs to the turbo, vanos & valve cover gasket.

bleonard, yes, it does sound like a systemic problem...I haven't run through the details with the service department but will do so when I pick the car up - hopefully today. It's been at the shop to 14 days. The turbo replacement makes up the bulk of the cost at roughly $3600.

 

Is this the same engine as the 3 series uses. I heard from the dealer they were changing engines in the 2016's

 

$3600 is still a lot of money to spend on repairs for a car only a little over 3 yrs old. As a general rule of thumb, I try not to spend more than 25% of the value of the car on repairs over a 2 yr period (money that could be better spent towards a downpayment on a new car). No idea what the value of your CM is, but I'd start keeping a close track of how much you spend on repairs after this, and plan on selling soon. If your service dept is able to give you a clear diagnosis of the underlying cause of this multiple parts failure, and fixed it, the risk of increasing future repair costs may be skirted. If they didn't find the culprit behind the cascade of failed parts, I'd start making a short term exit plan soon.

 

Nice that mini corporate helped you out.. They refused to help me out with the pump failure a month out of warranty-- oh and I brought it in for over heating right before the warranty expired. They said it was just a thermometer failure.

 

Congrats, hopefully she provides many more fun filled miles.

 

Glad they were able to help out. Did they tell you it was low oil or a fault of the vanos or something ?