My 2013 R60S manual transmission struggles mightily on hills. Starting from a dead stop absolutely requires the ebrake and at times results in a stalled vehicle and a terrible clutch smell. While this is disappointing I mostly have just attempted to avoid hills where possible and life has been fine. I seem to remember reading that the small engine and heavier frame made this an issue on all early Countrymans.

The real issue for me came this weekend. I had a full car (2 riders plus myself, 3 dogs) and came up on a hill in first gear in traffic. Moving slowly with first gear engaged and my eyes on tachometer the car began to lug and stall despite being in motion! With a car in front of me I could not move any quicker though I did put the pedal to the floor as it began to lug to try to save it from stalling. It was as though I was climbing the hill in third gear when I had it in first gear.

My engine is misfiring and sputtering when I enter the freeway (third gear, around 40MPH and 3-4K RPM) and hesitates when I pull in front of traffic in first gear. The hesitation I have heard others report about...the misfiring(?) sputtering I have not.

Are these all common R60S ALL4 issues or might I have something I need to bring the car in for?

What can I do?

 

Without scanning for codes everyone here is shooting in the dark.

Could be plugs, coils, waste gate, turbo, HPFP, so on and so forth

 

But your conclusion would be that the hill issue and the others I have mentioned are unusual with this car? I have been driving a manual transmission since 17 years of age and never struggled like this on hills.

 

No, that's not what IForgeKC is saying. Pull the codes (or have a shop do so) and do a site search. Such issues are well known with MINI's and there are a multitude of threads discussing similar clutch issues, plugs & coil issues, HPFP issues, turbo issues etc.

 

You do really need to have it scanned with a good code reader. That will help us help to point you in the right direction.

It may be as simple as needing new plugs, or it could be any number of other things. There is just no way to know without the codes.
Find a good Indy euro or bmw/mini repair shop, some will scan it for no charge. A generic reader like they use at most places will not read all of the codes. It needs something that can communicate with the proprietary BMW software. So be picky about where you go.
Then post the codes here, and we’ll see if we can help.

 

I had a horrible time starting from a stop on a hill also. The hill start assist didn't help me, and only made it harder to launch.

I have a bit extra power too (JB+), but still found the car struggling to launch on an incline.

 

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I've been in the same boat for the last 5 years with my 2013 All4. Even went to the point of leaving the car with the Mini dealer for a week (during which they only replaced the front wheel bearings, and were unable to find anything else it could be.) They even tested the clutch.... Nada. All showed perfect. I have only ever owned manual cars, and this is the only one I have ever had issues with on hills. Primarily on crazy steep inclines, but even on mellow ones every so often.

So, I've resorted to trying to figure it out myself. 3 years later, I have gotten nowhere. I replaced the clutch slave cylinders, with ALMOST no improvement. My next step will be a relatively aggressive clutch, maybe something from ACT.

 

Our 2012 All4 manual has no issues with steep hills. Wife had an issue with it going in limp mode on occasion. When she told me about it and I did the troubleshooting and pulled codes there was a misfire on one cylinder that turned out to be a bad spark plug.