Daughter just made her first car purchase, an 08 Mini Cooper, Base, I believe. Issues only 10 days after getting it. Paid 4900 and it has 135k on it. on day 11 oil light was on, checked and it was empty, so added some. The dealer she took it too to check it over told her she needed her coolant system flushed. When I checked the oil I seen why.. Oil in the Coolant. So my question is..after searching all over....is there a oil cooler if it isnt super charged? Ive seen posts about it being the oil filter housing that can allow oil into the coolant.. My first guess was the head gasket was blown, but..coolant isnt over full and the oil isnt where it should be. Any help that I can get at diagnosing this would be greatly appreciated. We have a hanes manual coming for it tmro. Just wondering if anyone has had anything similar and what the problem really was. Oh I did a compression check on all 4 cylinders adn they are all about 150.
Thanks in advance!!

 

Well, I'm very sorry to hear about your trouble. I have an '07 MINI (non-S), and I recently had the same problem. Compression and leak-down tests confirmed my head gasket was leaking. Check the lemon-laws in your state. I'll be you lunch your head gasket is blown, but testing is the best way to confirm.

Your first question ... there is no oil cooler on the N-12 engine (not needed).

You need to perform a leak down test. Your compression numbers seem low, but that could be cause by missing a step, (blocking the throttle plate open, not removing all the spark plugs, low battery, bad gauge etc.) My individual cylinder compression numbers were in the 200 PSI range, and all within 10% of each other, but I discovered the #1 cylinder leak-down was double that of the other cylinders. When I pulled the cylinder head, I discovered (with a Starret straight edge) that it was warped even though we had never overheated the engine; the machine shop confirmed the head was warped and they milled .006" off the head. Normal operating temp of this engine is 221 deg F, and that's too high!

One last thought, if you do pull the cylinder head, make sure you have all the valve seats replaced. They tend to fall out after performing a valve job or overheating the engine. http://www.engineprofessional.com/TB/TB113017-1.pdf

Also, make sure the shop has the required special tools to remove and install the VANOS springs. If they don't have the tools, buy them and remove the camshafts yourself. The tools cost me $230.00! One of the shops I took the head to pull the bolts out of the VANOS prings without relieving the tension; they pull the threads right out of the head, and I had to repair them.