There's not much threads upon this subject, I just read hints and bits. I know that the MINI supercharger has an expected life of around 100K miles. And of course it also depends on how hard you drive it. But my question pertains to the what happens after the supercharger dies... will your engine check light come on? will your engine not work properly? can you drive without a SC? if so for how long? is there a aftermarket SC? any research and developing ones? is it possible to convert it from a supercharger to a turbo charger?

 

Generally, the outright failure mode for the supercharger is that the gears on the driver's side fail. Since the supercharger drives the water pump via these gears, you're not going far without the supercharger.

The gears *are* lubricated, but on some cars, the lubricating oil leaks out, and since checking/replacing the oil isn't part of the normal maintenance schedule, the leakage often goes unnoticed.

I think there's been some development into a replacement supercharger (the Eaton M62), but I don't know if it ever got to the point of being an available bolt-on replacment (I'm sure those involved will chime in, since they know much more). There are also turbo-only conversions, but again, I don't know if they ever developed into an easy DIY swap.