Over the last couple of weeks I had noticed that when my car was cold it had a louder than usual "whine" which I contributed to the turbo and the cold weather (don't drive it too often when cold) which would go away as the car warmed up. Well yesterday I hopped in it to do some errands and when I accelerated realized I had very little power above 3K RPM and only about 1 lb boost (I have a Marshall Boost gauge). When I stopped in town I looked under the hood to see if there was anything obvious (Loose intake hose, etc) but all looked normal. Upon restart everything was fine again, no unusual whine and boost and acceleration was back to normal. After setting all day at work the problem was back in the afternoon, but this time it didn't return to normal so I called the dealer on my way home to set up an appointment, after talking to the dealer and getting an appointment, the car got worse (Have a 50 mile drive) and by the time I got close to home the car was bucking and at times would not accelerate at all, and even stalled about a mile from the house going up a hill where it would not rev past idle (stall). I thought I was going to need to call roadside assistance but was finally able to "limp" home. Because the dealer is 40 miles away I called roadside assistance today to have them tow it to the dealer as I don't trust to drive it.

Anyway, not looking for anyone to diagnose the problem, but just curious if anyone has had a similar issue.

 

As I suspected, I just got a call from the dealer, and it looks like the turbo charger locked up. He said there is scoring on the "intake side". The dealer said this is the first one they've seen go bad. Not being that familier with turbo engines, should I be concerned about anything else? Such as if it's scored, where all that metal went?

Looks like I'll be without if for a few more days

 

The scoring could be because the turbine center bearing went bad allowing the wheel to touch the housing.

How loud was your turbine whine when you heard it?

Cause I rarely can hear mine - if your's was loud enough that you heard it all the time, that could be a good indicator that your bearing was failing.

I too would worry about that metal if it's a significant amount of scoring - I'd definitely ask your dealer about that!

 

Last night, while drive on the highway at about 80mph, my turbo had a really loud whine. This lasted for the remainder of my highway drive (about 6 miles). Since then, the whine is gone but the turbo seems to race while backing down... definitely different than normal. Power seems to be OK. My car has about 17K on it. Rjb, how many miles do you have? I now have a possibly paranoid fear. Is the 'power loss after ECU flash' thread related to this? Is Mini backing down boost because the JCW is overtuned causing premature wear of the turbo?

 

My car has just under 17K miles on it. It has not been "re-flashed". The dealer claims this is the first turbo failure they've seen and has BMW involved because of this (They called it a "hot ticket"), according to my service advisor they are awaiting BMW on instructions on what else to check, i.e. was it "just" a turbo failure or did something cause the turbo to fail and did the turbo failure cause any other problems. My service adviser says there was no sign of oil starvation nor were the oil ines to the turbo "seeping", he said they've seen sometimes where the oil lines were seeping, but no turbo failure. I should get an update today.

My "whine" started of relatively quiet, just a slightly louder then normal whine upon starting out when cool, but then would go away one the car warmed up (8-10 miles of driving), in fact with the radio at normal volumes, it would be very hard if not impossible to detect . The day it went out it was much louder then usual and would come and go even when warmed up.

 

Interesting. My friend took his just out of warranty 2007 MCS to the dealer last week when it went into limp mode and CEL light came on. They gave it back to him the next day saying they had replaced a broken vacuum hose and a related sensor. 100 yards out of the dealer's drive, it went back into limp mode so he immediately returned. It's now been there since last Thursday, yesterday afternoon they called and said "it might be the turbo." If so, between his and yours, that's the first I've heard of a blown turbo on an R56. I've heard of turbos wearing out on other makes of cars, but it's usually a really high mileage thing. Keep us updated.

 

Now this is interesting... the fact that we have the same mileage is alarming.

I'm very curious to know if your new turbo results in de-tuned boost and no more exhaust burble. Keep us posted. How much boost did you have when all was OK?

Once again the paranoid side of me... if this is not simply a matter of a few bad turbos, but instead the result of an overtuned turbo the only remedy I see would be to reflash and lower boost to prevent wear. If BMW does not want to admit their mighty JCW cannot produce 210hp for an extended period (and thus a class action), they would not acknowledge this de-tune. Anyone know what the result of turbo boost getting set too high would be?

 

Also, anyone out there have an 09 JCW with greater than 17k miles which hasn't been reflashed?

 

Generally boost was around 14-15 PSI, although In first gear with Sport mode on and full throttle, I'd see peaks of 19 PSI. I'll let everyone know what the results are when i get my car back, sure hope I don't lose that burble, that's they only reason I don't mind being stuck in traffic, I turn down the radio and listen to the exhaust.

 

My November '08 build JCW currently has close to 24K miles and has not been reflashed. It has also been trouble free. I took it in once complaining about the airconditioning, but the SA gave me some tips for controlling it that satisfied my qualms. I changed my own oil at 7500 miles and had the factory oil service around 15K. Still runs as strong as the day I got it.

 

Here we go with the class action again...............gimme a break! Why do you guys always assume there's some sort of conspiracy? Once in a while a car breaks, it does not mean every other car made like it will break too!

"Turning the boost up" - within the limits of production cars - won't do anything to the turbo itself. It's not like there's a dial on the side of the turbo that increases or decreases boost. It's all controlled either up or more often downstream of the turbo, but either limiting the intake or by leaking off the boost. I think the OP simply had a bearing faiure - it can happen. Either that or the car ingested something - what that could have been I have no idea.

It'll be interesting to see what they decide caused it, and I still want to know what they think about the metal scoring on the inside of the housing, whether the shavings were on the exhaust side and blown out thru the muffler or the intake side and injested by the engine.

 

'Here we go with the class action again...............gimme a break! Why do you guys always assume there's some sort of conspiracy? Once in a while a car breaks, it does not mean every other car made like it will break too!'

In case you havent read the thread, I'm have the same problems as the OP. In case you haven't read the reflash thread, it seems many people are having a loss of boost because of a window fix flash. In case you didnt read my post, I never suggested starting a class action suit...

"Turning the boost up" - within the limits of production cars - won't do anything to the turbo itself.

Do you think that 'within the limits of production cars' has anything to do with my comments/questions?

I think the OP simply had a bearing faiure - it can happen. Either that or the car ingested something - what that could have been I have no idea.

How can you possibly make this comment while dismissing mine? Since there were ~350 JCW's sold in the US (with a major difference being the significantly higher than S boost) and quite possibly there are 2 bad at 17K in this thread... I'm concerned... Do you think they have many data points on the longterm viability of the stock JCW?

 

20K miles on mine, no reflash, no problems.

 

Although mine (2009 JCW) has not been reflashed and has only 14K miles on it, it's in the shop for the second new turbo replacement.

The first time the turbo died I'd noticed that it was making weird noises. Turned out that the bearings had gone bad. It still ran OK, but the dealer convinced me that I shouldn't drive it in that condition so I left it with them. They had a new turbo air freighted out from Germany, which took several days.

After that, I noticed that I could hear the turbo whine. I thought that was a little odd because I'd never heard that before. Then the oil light started to come on periodically - always at low idle. I thought it was low (I'd noticed that this engine seems to use a bit of oil - not used to that in any of my other new cars, but it wasn't really that much) so I dumped in a quart. That didn't stop the light from coming on, so I took it to the dealer for a look-see.

On examination, they determined that the new turbo (which was only about 6 weeks old) was bad, so they sent off for another one. [Why they don't have a pallet of them somewhere in this State (or at least this Country) is beyond me, but the dealer said they hadn't had any problems with them to date. Well now they do!]

After installing the new turbo and just before they were about to give me my car back, they witnessed for the first time the oil light coming on. They had failed to see that when they looked for the problem earlier, but now they knew I wasn't crazy. They dropped the pan to have a look for the cause and found metal shavings in the crankcase. Uh oh. On disassembling the engine they found a thrust washer had disintegrated - apparently to such an extent that they decided to replace the entire engine!

So here I am two weeks later waiting for them to receive the new engine from Germany so they can get my baby back on the road. Meanwhile, I'm driving my 2003 Tundra - which is a great truck, but it handles like the Queen Mary, isn't nearly as much fun to drive, and sucks twice as much fuel per mile as my JCW - but at least it runs on regular.

I hope this isn't going to be a recurring thing. I remember well how unreliable the original Mini Coopers were. A friend of mine had one of those back in the 1970s, and he practically had to have someone follow him around to pick up the pieces as they fell off! I had expected that a car built by BMW would be engineered better, but if this thrust bearing issue hasn't already been addressed by some sort of retrofit I'll bet it'll happen again - hopefully while it's still under warranty.

Tom S

 

The paranoid delusion continues... Please update us as to the power & burble when you get it back on the road...

 

Talked to my friend with his 2007 S in the shop today. Blown turbo as suspected. They didn't really give him anymore details, I will examine his receipt after it gets done to see what all they replaced. He has around 55K miles, 2nd owner, and the extended warranty he bought is going to pay for it minus a $50 deductible. Even though the JCW has a larger, different turbo, AFAIK they are from the same manufacturer/family, so that makes four blown turbos in this thread when I'd never heard of another. Still don't think it's that widespread. On a sidenote, this same car had its entire engine replaced at around 43K miles after it ingested a bolt off of the cam structure, i.e. related to the cold start issue. I'm sure they did not replace the peripherals like the turbo on that rebuild automatically, maybe it was already damaged in the engine failure?

 

The dealer called me back today and as Tom S stated the turbo has to come from Germany (you'd think they'd have a least one in this country ). I don't suspect that mine was an oil pressure issue, I had installed an oil pressure gauge and never have seen the pressure below 30 PSI, it was usually around 60 PSI under normal operating conditions. I just had the one year service which included an oil change done in January, which does correspond to when the whine began, but can't think of any reason why they would correlate. They said they were going to replace the tubes for the intake etc, and check everything out. The service advisor was going to check again with the tech, but said he thought the tech said that it looked like the turbo "ingested" something, I'm going to try to get by the dealer this week and talk directly to the tech and try to take a look at the turbo.

 

This is a frightening thread. Living in the city I barely drive my jcw convt. My fear is that it will long after the warranty is up before I put enough miles on to see a problem develop. All I can say is enjoy I'm going to have to throw caution to the wind and cross the bridge if it ever comes. I hope that if there is a systemic issue it is addressed quickly and thoroughly. I was all charged up to buy another jcw, a clubman, for my cabin in california, but now I think I'll wait a bit.

 

I just got mine used a couple of weeks ago. So far it has been a dream machine. I have not been stuck in traffic so to listen to the cool exhaust tones, I like up-it a gear in sport, as I cruse through the narrow towns to and from work. On the Autobahn it kicks up to 135 nice, then steadily climes into the upper 140's with ease. I only pushed it harder then that once for a few moments the other day, coming to within a needle width of 150Mph. At these speeds the engine screams and there is no point in listening to any of the 10 speakers. LOL It is nice to know that you can stop faster then almost anything out there if need be. At just under 15k miles on the 09 JCW nothing is of concern. But now I will be aware and listening to every variation.
Today I was buzzing down a deserted back road doing the 0-100 check, a couple of minuter later when I parked I smelled a nasty synthetic burning smell. Kind of like breaks. I checked all 4 wheels, and none were even warm (cool 5c or 40F outside) and all were clear of dust. The smell was coming from the front of the car by the front wheels or from underneath near the wheel wells, but not from around the grill or intake. My best guess is that I was riding the clutch at a high rev. My bad, I will be more careful, and also keep checking to see if it happens again. Any pointers or Ideas or similar smells on this are welcome.

 

Yep, that's it - riding the clutch. I caught myself doing that once too. For some reason, it's particularly easy to do in this car. Maybe that's because the pedal is so light. I'm used to the feel of a Long pressure plate, which practically takes both feet to throw out!

Tom S

 

Why would you ever rest your foot on the clutch pedal? Part of Manual Driving 101 is to never use your clutch pedal as a foot rest. Release the clutch, then get off!

 

Got a call from my service adviser yesterday, I'm picking up my car today and am going to chat with the mechanic. I'll keep everyone posted as to what was replaced, and whether or not it still has the "burble"

 

OK, got my car back, no reflash as far as I can tell (still got the snap, crackle and pop, and seat of the pants power is the same, boost seems the same although haven't gotten fully into it yet). The problem was definitely the turbo. Talking to the Tech, here's what happened: Part of the seal on the intake side of the turbo (non compressed) where the intake hose (the black plastic molded tube between the airbox and the turbo) got ingested into the turbo charger causing the turbine to eventually seize up (I wasn't able to see the turbo, because it was already packed up and on it's way back to Germany). He said it looked like the seal wasn't seated properly, but it was on the bottom side where it couldn't be seen. So be careful to make sure it is seated properly if you remove that piece.

Anyway happy to be motoring again

 

Interesting thread indeed. After searching for "power loss" this is the only thread that was returned so I'll post here.

On my way home from work last night I pulled out to pass a truck. I accelerated from 3rd through 5th gears and heard a very audible "clank" and very much felt "shutter". I coasted back into my lane and honest to god just knew I was without drive but surprisingly I did have drive. However, something was very wrong. 4th gear returned nothing but "hicupping" at anything more than 1/4 throttle. 2nd and 3rd gave me drive but it now feels like trying to pull away from a stop in 5th . . . virtually no acceleration. Finally, the car will idle but tries to die/cut off every 10 seconds or so. I made it home and was able to maintain 40-50 mph but had to use the throttle very gingerly. Not sure what we are dealing with at this point (clutch, turbo, tranny?) but it certainly seems to be something mechanical vs. electrical. Nevertheless, it will have to be towed. I'll be contacting the dealer shortly.

Edit: I should add that I assume the car is in limp mode. However there are CELs on and no other visual signs of trouble. Car is an 09 with 14,xxx on the clock. It was purchased with aprox. 9k on the clock.

 

Let us know as soon as you have a diagnosis. Very interested to find out what happened.