Sure. The oil feed line became blocked. The turbo was not oiling and ended up rolling the edges of the vanes inside the turbo.

Btw, that oil line was replaced again earlier this week.

As was the battery.

And the main battery cable.

And now the melted alternator.

Worst car I've ever had.

 

Wow, I'm so sorry you've gone through this. Thanks for letting everyone know--those are ridiculous flaws/failures to have to go through. It looks like I'm not going to be getting an F56 after all. A car that young should never have such serious problems.

 

Its one car.
We have 2 F56's and thus far perfect.

So take it with a grain of salt.

 

True, true. One car is not statistically significant by any means.

That said, the description of the problem seems to indicate a serious design flaw that will hit many others eventually. For the turbo's oil feed line to become blocked, it suggests that the F56s are running dirty engine oil through a thin line. (If the turbo oil were isolated and completely segregated from the engine oil, it would always be clean and could never get blocked, barring a chunk of metal breaking off inside the turbo.)

If there really is dirty engine oil running through a thin line, eventually there will be build-up, and eventually, we will see more turbo failures at widely-varying mileages. There could be some people whose oil lines get nearly completely closed off (like clogged arteries in a human body) but still pass enough oil to keep the turbo running till 100k miles. And there could be some people who unfortunately get completely clogged up and see their turbos get destroyed far sooner.

We'll see what happens over time as more people rack up more miles...

I'm not concerned about the alternator issue ismith42 described--that is probably due to the OEM using poor insulating coatings on the windings. It's probably not a design flaw but a manufacturing flaw.

 

At the dealer's suggestion, I called MINI USA this morning. They are opening a case. We'll see what happens.

 

Best of luck to you--perhaps on your input, BMW/Mini may redesign the oil line. Maybe they'll make it wider so it takes much longer to get completely obstructed or maybe they'll isolate the turbo oil completely. You're going to be helping future F56 buyers.

 

There was a joke that I had joined MINI R&D, but they forgot to tell me.

I laughed. A little.

 

I suppose if they gave you a really cool Mini checkered or Union Jack lab coat, it might sweeten the deal... maybe?

 

They asked if this was my first experience with the brand (which it is).

This will require large amounts of sucking up. We discussed a new car.

Like I said, we'll see what happens. I'd be happy with extending the bumper-to-bumper warranty to 100k. Plus the upcoming JCW kit for the non-S. (Yes, you read that right - no timing yet for that upgrade)

 

NICE! I'm rooting for you--that JCW kit would be astounding!

When I bought my R52, I bought the extended maintenance but not the extended warranty. The ext. maint. was well worth it--brakes and oil changes are surprisingly expensive. But I wish I had bought the ext. warranty too.

That said, it always seems that with the "## years or ## miles" one or the other limit cuts off the coverage just when you need it... That's no accident--the engineers and bean counters calculate these cutoffs fairly accurately. The ext. warranty may not have saved me due to the years cutoff, so maybe it was a good thing I didn't buy it.

In short, you may want the JCW upgrade more than the warranty upgrade, because several years from now, you may find that the warranty didn't save you and thus wasn't worth anything to you in the end, but the JCW upgrade is obviously right there on your car, boosting its resale value...

 

Yea your right. Clearly the Mini brand is not for you. Check Toyota they have some pretty good appliances you may be interested in.

 

So it's reliability OR an enjoyable motoring experience? That doesn't seem right.

My 1974 Alfa Romeo is actually reliable AND fun. And it has 188k on it!
(Much less tech, I know)

 

That's so sad. You're implying that Mini owners should tolerate turbos that eat themselves.

Is it too much to hold BMW/Mini's feet to the fire to fix a design flaw? Especially one that involves parts getting violently chewed up as opposed to normal, graceful wear? Or does being a Mini owner require tacit submission to lower quality expectations?

Sadder still is that Toyota can accomplish legendary quality at a lower price in the Corolla (in the same car size as the Mini, though obviously not meant as a direct competitor for the same demographic).

Personally I think BMW/Mini would be glad to hear our complaints, if they want to make the Mini brand the best it can be. If they ever decide they don't want to hear about problems, the brand is doomed.

 

They implied nothing of the sort. A single car with a blocked oil line is not a design flaw. It's literally the only case I've heard of this happening. You're making a mountain out of a mole hill.

lsmith42 has every right to be upset with his F56 and the issues it has. It's baffling that there have been so many, something major must have happened that has slowly spread throughout the engine to cause all these other issues I guess. But there are dozens of owners in this thread that have had nothing more than a few rattles to deal with over the same mileage. If one instance in one thread about a car's reliability is enough to turn you off of it, then yes you should probably not be shopping for anything but a Toyota, or maybe a bicycle.

 

Yes, PatM DID imply exactly that. "If you want that level of high quality, go buy a Toyota" also means "Minis are not high enough quality to meet your expectation." And PatM quoted my discussion about the turbo problem, which would indicate the level of quality (unreasonably) being expected involves expecting that turbos not eat themselves.

As to the mountain out of molehill thing, please note that I did say and have been saying that we need to wait longer to see if more people report problems. I know full well that one data point is not enough to make a generalization and have been asking current F56 owners to report in as their mileages climb. We'll see whether this turbo issue remains rare or not. My prediction is that they will redesign it for later model years, so we probably will not hear many complaints over time. That does not mean it wasn't a design flaw, only that BMW/Mini will have gotten on top of it, as they should.

 

... and, if I'm truly doing R&D for MINI, and they take care of me properly, so be it. Sometimes how a company recovers from a situation is as (or more) important than the boring "getting it right the first time."

As for the turbo, MINI in Germany (BMW?) did request that it be sent back to them for study. Anecdotally, MINI changed their preferred oil not long after. May be coincidental vs causal.

 

Good on them! That sounds like how BMW engineers should and would behave. I never doubted that BMW/Mini would take good care of you in this service recovery.

Thank you again for your input--you're helping me make my purchasing decision. And thanks especially for going to the trouble of helping BMW/Mini engineering!

---

To everyone who thinks I'm overreacting:

The question is and has been, how much of a gamble am I taking by buying an F56 now or next year? That's what I'm trying to estimate. So far, we have too few data points coming in (because it's too soon). ismith42's situation is a "black swan event" where the probability of it happening is very low but the consequence/impact is very high. Black swan events require special consideration.

What it boils down to is a difference in approach. Most people look at the probability and say "it's too low to worry about." I agree that it's too low, but if the impact is high, it's still something I need to consider. To me, a surprise $1000 repair bill and 2 days with the car in the shop is high enough of an impact that even if the probability is very low, I have to take this into account (after the warranty runs out) as part of the total cost of ownership of an F56.

Obviously some people are more willing and able to take the gamble (PatM is probably one of them*). Good for them--I have a friend who's a millionaire who buys a new Mini every year. He can afford any problems that it may throw at him. Me, not so much. PatM's response: buy a Toyota, Mini's are not for you. That's probably good advice; I'm right on the borderline of where the Mini might be just a bit too expensive in TCO. That's why it matters to me to do the math. My BMW 3-series was a better deal. It cost the same as my Mini in terms of sale price but went to 200k miles and had no surprise repairs. Everything was normal wear--no design flaws. I'm hoping the F56 will be the same way by the time I buy it.

(* Sorry, PatM--if it seems like I'm slamming you, I'm not. No hard feelings at all.)

 

While I do feel for you Ismith42, it's a drag to get a car that does not work right, dchang0 I think you jumped to conclusions that are based on conjecture and no real facts, other than what Ismith42 described. I just don't think it's fair to indict a car model across the board and claim engineering flaws based on the limited amount of information and especially like incidents.

If you compare the threads in the F56 forums compared to the R56 forums I think there is a world of difference between the two models. Vast improvement if you ask me and I have owned both.

It's a great forum to toss around ideas and if I rubbed you guys the wrong way I am sorry for that. Like everyone else I am hoping that for the most part this model will be good. And just for the record I do believe that for the price you pay for these cars you should get and expect a good solid vehicle that is free of rattles as well. Unfortunately I think rattles may be inherent in this car because of the suspension. I have found no rattles in our cars thus far. We don't have the sports suspension and I hope this will hold off any rattles at least until the cars are a bit more elderly.

I hope they get your car fixed or provide relief in some other way Ismith42.

 

No apologies necessary. We're good. Forums are for healthy debate and civil disagreement.

I think part of the problem is that people overlooked my many qualifying words like so:

probably
seems to indicate
seems that
it suggests
if

These words should have made it pretty clear that what I was doing was absolutely conjecture and not sweeping indictment.

It's like this: you know how when you shop on Amazon or look up some restaurant's reviews on Yelp, it's best to ignore all the 5-star reviews and focus on the 1-star reviews? That's what's going on here with me. Lots of people will own an F56 and have absolutely no defects or suffer from design flaws (the flaws may exist but they might never get hurt by them--for instance, my BMW 3-series had a fuel tank design flaw that was subject to a recall, but it never failed in mine). So they will say, "my F56 was awesome."

And that's how it should be. Just like you say, "And just for the record I do believe that for the price you pay for these cars you should get and expect a good solid vehicle"--I wholeheartedly agree.

But me, I'm going to focus on the 1-star reviews and see how bad it could get. If the worst thing that happens on an F56 is the door handle key cover falls off, great! If someone comes along and says their F56 ate their firstborn child and sacrificed its remains to Baal, then I will pay extra special attention and try to extrapolate and guess the chances of that happening to me. It might be a 1/1,000,000 chance of Baal sacrifice, but I sure wanna avoid that. "Did it happen to anyone else? Any more lost firstborn children? Anyone? Aww crap, how on earth could Mini have allowed an F56 to eat a firstborn child?!"

---

I'm right there with you on hoping the F56 turns out to be great for 99.999% of its owners, because I want to be an F56 owner someday too! Just gotta wait and watch a little while longer, that's all. "Once bitten, twice shy," as they say. If my R52 hadn't had its various non-normal-wear problems, I'd have jumped on the F56 six months ago.

Sorry for beating a dead horse, LOL. This is the last I'll talk about it. I'll shut up and listen to see if there are any other "1-star reviews." Thanks to ismith42 reporting the suicidal turbo to BMW/Mini, that problem will probably be addressed and will never be reported again. Hopefully no other 1-star reviews ever pop up for any other issues. PROBABLY, there will be no other 1-star-review-type issues.

 

2014 MCS bought new June 2014
26,500 miles and love driving this oh so quirky car!

** Nail in rear tire (low tire pressure warning message came on); continued my long drive home, pulled nail and plugged. Wasn't a fan of Run Flats but they do come in handy when you need them!

** Drivetrain Malfunction message at 22K miles (software reprogramming) + wheel speed sensor mounting bolts (parts ordered and replaced)

** 13K miles - Dealer corrected gear **** shifter issue and oil filter cannister issue as per TSBs

** Very early on - annoying vibration noise coming from the backseat's moonroof sun blocker screen. Applied "folded cardboard paper" fix inserted between trim and screen.

I change the oil myself every other service between dealer visits.

Very happy with this car. Like I said, it's full of personality and loves to zoom!

Oh, and one other thing...Mine is a manual. My wife and I have experienced the automatic version of the dealer's Justa on two different occasions in loaner vehicles. If I would have bought an automatic, I would have returned it within two weeks. The automatic in our opinion is absolutely horrible. I found I had to either drive it in Sport mode all of the time or use the "manual" shift option of the auto. I'm sure others would disagree, but our experience was very unimpressive.

 

The manual transmission is one of the best things about these cars!

My dealer's shop foreman and I agree with you on the auto... And my loaner experience bears it out as well. Sport+sport makes it tolerable.

 

My F56 has the smoothest shifting manual transmission I've ever driven.

 

Own the 14 MCS for over a year now and 17K miles. Only problem encountered was the weeping windshield washer jets. Dealer fixed and keep on motoring.

 

From MINI USA today:

"Your request for assistance has been escalated to me. I am in the process of obtaining the vehicle’s repair history which I will share with the MINI Regional Management Team. As soon as the Regional Team renders a decision on what action MINI USA may take, I will contact you. Please note the process may take approximately 7 to 10 business days."

 

Original 150 amp alternator replaced with newer-spec 180 amp alternator, along with new starter and battery cables... we'll see

(MINI USA should be contacting me next week on the other part of the conversation)