I purchased my mini almost a month ago. The first day of ownership I went to start her up and after the engine came on like its supposed to it just turns itself off. It does this several times before I'm able to drive it.

I took it back to the dealer and of course they don't find anything wrong with it. I take it home and find that the retaining clips that hold the intake tube to the airbox are broken off and the intake tube is sitting loose in the engine bay.

I duct tape the intake tube to the airbox just to keep it in place while the dealer orders the part. A week or so passes before I can have the part replaced and during this time the vehicle drives much better but still has the starting issue - only now it doesn't turn off completely. Instead it just idles very roughly. Depressing the accelerator does nothing. I have to turn off the car and try again.

I just got the mini back last night. The dealer replaced the airbox and all seemed to be well until tonight as I was leaving work and it doesn't want to start again. It still vibrates extremely hard while idling and depressing the accelerator does nothing. I had to restart about 5 times tonight before I could go home.

I asked them to check and clean the MAF sensor while it was there and they smugly said that if something was wrong with the MAF that I'd get a CEL which is not necessarily true but hey what do I know?

I know people who've had similar symptoms and who ended up needing to clean their MAF.

Can anyone suggest what the problem could be? I'm leaning towards the MAF but i suppose it could be a number of things.

Please help!

 

Mine did this about 2 months ago and it was the high pressure fuel pump.

 

Did you need to have that replaced or were you able to repair it? And how much did you spend?

 

is yours throwing a CEL? mine started off having rough idling during start-up but i only noticed it once or twice a week. after maybe a couple of weeks it gave me a CEL. i took it to the dealer and they replaced it under warranty.

 

That the fuel pump sounds like a good bet. But also a MAF sensor maybe also. Bad thing about a MAF... You can't test it. Just replace and see if things are better. I swear BOSCH ones are very picky and seem to go out often. =\

 

No mine never threw up a CEL.

I took out the MAF and sprayed some dust and crap off of it with some compressed air and it seems to be running a lot better. I also got some CRC maf cleaning spray which I'll apply tomorrow.

Thanks for the replies my dudes

 

I had the same thing, it was the fuel pump. The dealer took care of it. For me, it happened during the winter and they thought it was the fuel additives at first...but it kept happening and it ended up being the fuel pump.

 

Charliefeesh, I can't tell if you have a Mini "S" or not but are you aware that Mini has extended the warranty for the high-pressure fuel pump to ten years and 120,000 miles? This warranty is tranferred to subsequent owners. You will see that there is Mini's contact information in the notice that you can call to see if your car is included. I don't know if this is your problem but you learn more about it below.

Follow this link: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...-for-hpfp.html

 

That's fantastic news! Thank you I'll definitely look into that.

And yes it is an "S"

 

SO I just got my mini back from the bmw/mini dealer today and the problem is NOT the hpfp. They don't know what the problem is as they can not replicate it. It is good to know that the hpfp is under warranty for another 6 years/60k miles but I still don't have a culprit for the starting issue which is becoming more and more intermittent.

The most recent occurrence was a few days ago when I was leaving a friends house. I was parked facing up a hill - not too steep maybe only 15 or 20 degrees up from the horizontal. I went to start the car and it just shook in place for a few seconds. Same old story. I had to drift down the hill and get the vehicle more level before it would start properly. I had just under a tank of gas.

When I picked up the car from the dealer it was driving a little sluggishly so I filled her up a little bit and she came back to life.

Confused to say the least.