My car is an 09 MCS that has a build date of 03/09. In the past 2 or 3 weeks my car has twice started but nearly stalled. It will start, then RPM's will fluctuate from 450rpms (nearly stalling) to 1600rpms. It bounces back and forth. The first time this happened 2 weeks ago it continued for about a minute until i turned the car off, waited 2 minutes, and restarted. All was fine. I brought it to the dealer the next day and they found nothing wrong. It happened again this morning. Except that the yo-yo of rpms only lasted 10 seconds and it normalized w/o intervention from me.

Other possibly relvant info. 3 weeks after i took delivery i was driving to work and realized i was getting low on gas. 2 red ticks remaining. No big deal i think, on my 07 i once drove until there was NOTHING lit up as i drove into a gas station. So back to 3 weeks ago. I get to work and have one red bar lit up. So i think the first stop on the way home is the gas station (maybe 2 miles away). But i get about 1/4 mile from work and the car just stops. The gas meter still shows one red tick. Either way i needed to get a ride to the gas station to get some gas. Not sure if it is related, but it could be.

Thanks

Any idea?

 

Same thing happened to me in my GTI. Sounds like a vacuum leak.

 

Well it got worse. 2 days ago it happened again but only for about 10 to 15 seconds and things leveled out. Then this morning. rpm's all over the place and the engine light (yellow and half filled) showed up. RPMs fluctuated for a few minutes until i shut off the car. I let it sit for 30 seconds to a minute and restarted. This time the engine light came on (not filled with yellow) and the car seemed normal. So i had two options, roadside to tow it (and wait for an hour) or drive to the dealership (30 minutes or so). So i called the dealership and drove it in. I took video and pictures this time so they should be able to fix it....i hope. This is getting kind of old for a 2 month old car.

 

Here is a video of the problem
http://vimeo.com/5729061

 

Any possibility that you got gas with more than 10% ethanol? The start and then stall is something that happens to me with an older car when I use other than Shell gas. Acura said it was ethanol related.

 

Car is fixed. Needed a new high pressure fuel pump. The codes were DME 2880 and a bunch of cylinder misfires. All covered under warranty.

Not really sure if it was related to Ethanol. I will keep an eye on the gas pumps from now on though. AKAIK in NJ I haven't seen gas with more than 10%.

 

I keep having a similar problem, except that my RPMs never get over 1000rpm. I wind up turning off the Air Conditioning and radio to restart it. That seems to help, but it still takes about 3 re-starts to get the engine going. Maybe I have a bad pump too.

 

The problem with mine was that if i didn't get a check engine light the computer never registered a problem. So unless i could reproduce it in front of the dealer for them to see/fix they wouldn't be able diagnose it. Once i got the check engine light the computer registered a code and they could then fix it.

 

I wonder if that's what's wrong with mine. I have an '07 MCSa. Though mine is not nearly as pronounced as yours and I get no warning light. But I've had a slight engine surge when I come to stops that started about, oh, I'd say three or four months into ownership. The RPM's go up a blip, like an extra 100-200 and then back down. I had a CEL last winter and it wound up being a stuck thermostat, got that fixed. And after I did, the car was running great so I thought that was the issue. About a month later, the surge returned.

Had the car in for regular service about 2 weeks ago and told them that the car was still surging. This time they said the car had a slight misfire in all cylinders and that I would have to reschedule as they would have to keep the car and pull the engine apart to find the problem. As I've got just a hair over a 2 hour drive (not as bad as some on here have, but still a pain in the *** to me) I've decided to wait until my next service stop to have them look at it. And I'll probably have them fix the cold start chatter then too.

In the meantime, I'm waiting for that Allentown dealership to open up. That will cut about 20-25 minutes off my drive for service.

 

My high pressure fuel pump & fuel rail were just replaced. Starting got progressively worse over a three week span until it just would not start.
Mini thought it was bad gas so I changed stations three times to no avail.
All is well again.....for now.

 

Exactly the same thing here

Got my 2009 r56 on June 13th.

One week after bringing it home, I had one instance of "Cold Start Chatter". I live at the beach in SoCal, so it doesn't really get cold here.

On August 14th @ 4800 miles (or so) my car started to hesitate and made a single "pop-ing" sound after pulling away from a stop sign. The Nav screen read "Engine! Reduced Power".

Once at the dealership it idled just like your video. The dealership told me today they are replacing the "High Pressure Fuel Pump".

I have ONLY ever used Chevron Premium in this car, so I will be curious to find out what caused this.

Glad to see others with the same problem and diagnosis... Hopefully it will be smooth sailing from here on in...

 

Cold start means when the engine is at ambient temp. It doesn't have to be snowing out. It usually happens when the car is cold, you move it a short distance (to wash it, for example), leave it overnight, then start it.

I had this happen occasionally, and took it into MINI of Mountain View. They were able to reproduce it and replaced the timing chain tensioner.

You don't want to leave this until it is out of warranty. Eventually, it can trash your engine. See if you can reproduce it on demand. Be sure to talk to your dealer about it. If they put you off, try another dealer. You definitely want it fixed during warranty.

 

Mine hasn't "cold start chattered" since the new fuel pump. But i am keeping an eye on it.

 

Shouldn't be any relationship. The "cold start rattle" has to do with the oil system and timing chain. Sounds like someone dragging a bicycle chain over metal, which is pretty much what it is. It increases with rpm. The faster, the more horrible.

 

Yeah my leased 07 did it a few times and so did my new 09 (once or twice).

 

I just started to get this "cold start stumble" problem. At first it was only when I started the car in the mornings before work. Now it's starting to happen when I leave for lunch (4 hours of sitting). And just today when I left work at the end of the day (another 4 hours of sitting) the check-engine light came on and the 7 codes were all misfire related.

The stumble usually goes away after the second start. This had me worried that it was oil starvation. I check my oil level whenever I pump gas on all the cars that I drive (it's just the overly concerned mechanic in me... ever since I worked on that '93 Camry with the worst oil sludge ever, ugh!) and the Mini has always been spot on.

It seems like the dealership is replacing fuel pumps to fix the issue. I'm curious to hook-up a fuel pressure gauge to test this hypothesis but I doubt they make gauges for direct fuel injection and the ultra-high pressures associated with them.

I wonder if E10 gas is the main issue... down with ethanol!!! I know that E10 is 'causing issues with old-style pintle fuel injectors on the 90-93 300ZXs.

 

Mine is having problems starting for the last couple weeks and chugs for a few seconds, but runs perfectly once it gets going. No error codes yet so the dealer suspects bad gas, but I have filled up at 2 different places, so I doubt it. I'll try a tank of 94 octane, then bring it back to the dealer if it doesn't get better. Hopefully I don't get stranded somewhere in the mean time.

 

turns out it was the high pressure fuel pump.

 

Had the same problem in my GTI. Engine misfiring. It was caused by bad gas.

 

The HPFP problem is very common with BMW vehicles, like the 135 and the 335s. For the 135, many on the forums expect a HPFP failure around 7,000 miles. Usually the part is replaced under warranty and it doesn't happen again. I am researching to purchase a MINI and not surprised to find the HPFP in turbo engines from BMW.

 

To clarify: cold start chatter/rattle and cold start "stumble" (common with the R53) are two completely different problems. With the former, the car idles smoothly with no codes or CELs, just noisy as hell like RC described.

 

About a week after that post, the car limped to the dealer and they replaced my fuel pump. I was without the car for about 5 days. They wanted to make sure that the new pump fixed the problem.

The car is different now. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. The idle seems a little high and when in 6th @ 3000 I'm now cruising at about 75mph, previously I was only going about 70mph.

 

Looks like a bad batch of HPFP's out and about.

I have an 09 MCS, built 5/09 with 9600 uninterupted fun driving miles until yesterday. Cold morning start with irregular revving until stalling and restarting w/o any additional problems. Today, same situation but this time, I got the dreaded yellow CEL light.

Called Mini of Manhattan and was advised to come in. I was also scheduled for the 10K miles oil change and annual maintenance checkup. Will keep all posted.....

 

I am having a similar problem and have had it to the dealer four times so far with no fix. Finally caught it on video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TF1BNhc0mL8

You guys think this is the HPFP as well?

 

Looks like HPFP but it is def something for the dealer.