I purchased that tool and it does not work for the F56/F55 with the B48 engine, at least not mine. The socket size on the end of the tool is way to large for the tensioner bolt.

 

Interesting, works on my B46 (2017), so the implication would be that the B46 and B48 have a different bolt/head size. I would not have expected that... though I have noted in at least some diagrams that the B46 and B48 have different belt-threading patterns. Different tensioner altogether maybe?

 

It is a real bugger to get to, and the Haynes video while somewhat helpful doesn't apply to the F55/F56 directly. Would love to know how they slid the turbo airpipe out of place, as I tried for quite some time and could never find the clearance to remove it entirely. At the end of the day after all the effort of removing the panels and trying to remove the airpipe the clearance I did get only provided me enough room to confirm the belt tool I purchased was not the right socket size, as noted above. Interesting the crappy F55/56 'service' manual shows accessing the tensioner pulley from above, and nothing about airpipe removal, which is opposite of the Haynes video.

 

I show this part for all. ~357 that went to the ~475, dont see a bolt size change?



https://www.ecstuning.com/Search/Sit...h/11288479475/

 

Re the Haynes video (I assume the one you're referencing is from their series referencing the Mini One 2014-2018), I think I concluded that the model they were working on was a 3-cylinder (so B36 or B38) rather than a 4-banger, based on the amount of open space in front of the tensioner in the vid. The 4-bangers, as you have observed, just don't have that clearance... like at all. On my B46 the belt itself is wider than the open space between the tensioner pulley and the partition/wall/whatever in front of it.

So yeah, a real bugger to get to as you said, to deal with, etc. I'm glad I did the job once, it helped me learn some things. And I'm glad I have the tool (that works on mine) in case I need it for one thing or another. But the next time I have to actually remove & replace that belt? I'm paying a shop to do it, and I'm paying myself at least a cup of good coffee for having reminded myself once was enough.

 

Yeah, though the current quote is $1200-$1300 at local dealer. It appears it comes with a throttle body gasket and some other parts as well, so it appears they are tearing it apart from the top for better access. They listed it as 6.8 hr job quote. The service guy was even shocked quoting it saying "that can't be right"

 

$1200 - $1300 holy fricking wow! But yeah has to do with tearing it apart from the top.

Ok - so if I were doing this myself -- the purpose of all that upper teardown is to get to the alternator, in order to remove (or at least loosen) it to then get the belt off the alternator pulley. Once it's off the alternator pulley, you can deal with it as you wish (subject to it still being a pain, of course, and also subject to getting the tensioner secured in the "loose" position).

My take in that context, having yanked the intake off the car more than once while dealing with other things -- the 6.8 hours makes a certain sense if you are literally doing it by the book, removing every single thing that is in the way of full, clean, clear removal of the alternator. And replacing every gasket where you disconnect something. Also my take: you don't have to remove the alternator, you only have to get to a place where you can get the belt off of it. That said, it is a LOT easier to put it all back together again, not to mention getting the belt off the engine in the first place, if the alternator is out of the way.

When I finally took my serpentine belt off it was to replace the crank pulley. So I dealt with the tensioner, then unbolted the crank pulley from the bottom. I don't recommend that you do this "just because" due to possibility of ending up with a leaking front crank seal should something not be ultra-precise. But I mention this approach because even with doing this, and the belt literally just sort of hanging around, getting it off the engine was a !(@#$&*%#$& pain due to all the varied pulleys and the alternator in particular being in the way.

I also don't personally think you have to remove the throttle body from the intake (thus requiring throttle gasket replacement action) to get the intake out of the way of the alternator. Get the charge pipe off the throttle body, get the intake unbolted (and all the things on it disconnected/out of the way), and play it thoughtfully, and you can rotate the intake manifold off to the side (driver's side) to facilitate alternator access (passenger side).

 

Thanks, really appreciate all the info!

I checked the belt this last go and there is still no cracking or significant wear marks. I was trying to keep up the preventative maintenance and have piece of mind knowing I replaced it given my MCS has 120k on it now. There is no service interval listed for the belt, and the service guy I talked to for the quote just gave the standard response of needs to be replaced when there appears to be wear or cracking.

Looks like next oil change I will attack the tear down from the top, as you walked through, to hopefully get it replaced then. Love this car but man this is quite the effort for a belt change.

 

I wanted to add to this on the chance that someone comes along, I did this last night and what a PITA - was not a fun Saturday night at all. I bought the special tool for the job CTA3884 from ECS and it was no help, it kept hitting a metal portion of the engine that stuck out and wasn't enough to take the belt off or put a new one on. I'd wager if you took off the windshield cowl and sound insulation you might get an extra tooth that could prevent this but I don't recall ITSA mentioning this. I used a 19mm C wrench with a pry bar taped on to get further leverage - it was a bit sketchy but allowed me to turn the tensioner enough to put the belt on the crank. The Haynes video with the 3-cylinder is in no way representative of how tight the area is for the 2L.

In the end, I was able to snake the belt from the top down, using my C-wrench was able to get enough leverage to get the belt on the crank pulley and rotated the engine by hand to finish the job.

 

I've used the CTA tool that ECS sells with no issues.

The job overall was on a 1-10 scale for the task was a solid 10 in terms of how hard it was to do. I thought it would be easy, but it took 2.5 hours on a Cooper S.

I removed the lower splash tray, lower charge pipe, headlight, inner fender liner and the washer bottle. The access could only be described as challenging. I paid for access on BMWs site and the instructions on there are so vague that they really didn't help. I had to use paint stiring sticks to push the belt in place. I totally understand why MINI wants crazy labor times to change this belt. The R53 is cake compared to the F56 in this area.

 

Heck, I'm impressed that you got it down to 2.5 hours even *with* all those removals. You wanna do mine for me in another 120k miles?

 

I forgot to add that I also took the bumper cover off to get the washer bottle out. The entire time I was weaving a tapestry of profanity. I'm pretty sure that 2.5 hours took 2.5 months off my life. It was dumb luck. I just so happened to have extra new headlight screws and retainers laying around. I'm not sure what that purple loctite is that BMW uses, but it pretty much insures that the headlight retainers will be no good.

If the waterpump ever starts leaking or a tensioner goes bad i'm paying MINI to do that one, but it will get the parts bazooka where everything gets replaced on the drivebelt system. I suspect that MINI techs must drop the entire engine and trans on a table if a lot of work is taking place in the area.

 

You took the bumper cover off to get the washer bottle out??? I didn't have to do that to get my washer bottle out (different repair, I was replacing the washer pump). That said, had I taken the bumper cover off, I would have had more room to get at that doggoned belt.

The headlight screws come from the factory with red Loctite. I know because when I bought new ones in the context of replacing my upper engine mount, red Loctite was on them (and I could see remnants of the red on the old screws too). Maybe someone put blue on your red and you got to "have fun." But yeah, headlight retainers, just replace 'em, so much not worth the hassle to try to re-use...

I pretty much feel like you do, if I have to go near that belt again, I'm replacing a bunch of stuff because "do it while there" and I'm either paying someone to do it or I'm drydocking the MINI for a month to give myself air for losing patience as I work through it...

 

I've always wondered why we've never seen a full step by step YouTube video on this DIY yet for the 2.0. I suspect the amount of f-bombs would get it banned.

 

FYI: I did the serpentine belt on my F56 Mini and the hardest part was getting the charge pipe out. The Bentley Manual video was VERY helpful. Other than that it's just labor intensive, but not hard at all. BUT, you must order the special tensioner release tool/wrench. It was $40 off of ebay and worked perfectly. Also, there's no splash cover thing on the F56 with the 4cyl turbo (S and JCW). And yes, bumper had to come off, as did the washer fluid reservoir. Nothing but bolts, not hard. However, do take pics of everything before and during disassembly to recall which nuts and bolts go where. Separating and labelling in ziplock sandwich bags helps too. All in all, took me 3hrs but I also did the trans fluid replacement and spark plug replacement while at it (those were both super easy).

What I absolutely could NOT do, was replace the roller and the tensioner as I had intended for good measure. I have NO idea how the heck you get those off. Seemed damn near impossible without pulling the engine out, lol. So now I have those, brand new, just sitting around. Also, the old belt at 96k miles looked excellent somehow

 

BUMP: anybody ever figure out how to remove/replace roller and tensioner?? I still have them sitting in boxes. Are they an engine-out thing?