18k miles. Rattling on cold start and now error codes. Turns out the oil passages are "congested" and the turbo is ruined, so a new turbo is headed my way. Oil has been changed by the dealer every 7,500 miles.

Gotta say, I beat the crap out of my SRT-4 for ten years, including hard track time, and it saw the dealer once in all that time for a camshaft position sensor.

This MINI needs to see the dealer for a problem every two months. Love it when it works! Not happy right now.

 

I find it funny that these cars don't come with a catch can. I bet the dealer won't be too keen on installing an aftermarket one as well. Maybe the moral of the story here is we should install them the day our warranty expires.

 

I don't think that's going to help.


Either the dealer is telling the truth or they are using the oil clogging as an excuse to premature failure, as that is a common reason.

What sort of error messages are you getting?

Was the turbo any noisier that normal when under full load?

If the dealer is telling the truth the cause is either poor oil and/or extreme oil temperatures. Oil can burn in the lines close to the turbo, restricting supply if its getting too hot. Poor fuel can also affect EGT (exhasut gas temperature), making the problem worse

What fuel are you using? Something suitable like Shell V-power, or cheap Costco cr*p?

Is the dealer using original MINI oil, or their own supplier?

You mileage is higher than most and you have implied you have ragged your car - have you driven it pretty hard over those 18K , miles? Are you in a "warm" state?


If the dealer is lying and they don't really know why the turbo failed then I'd just put it down to defective part failing prematurely.

When turbo's bearings go, normally they get quite noisy under load - like a loud whirring noise as they spin up. Did you have any of that?

A rattle like you describe is normally the pivot bearing for the actuator arm for the wastegate, where the shaft enters the turbo body. Failure of that has nothing to do with oil lines clogging.
BMW has had to extend the warranty for the turbo on N54 engines for this exact issue. Just google bmw turbo rattle

Here is one such example:-