Help you experienced Mini/Mini Coupe owners? What's up or could be up with constant yellow engine light on? It only has 40,440 miles and I've already invested 3 months of car payments into repairs and I've had it less than a month. (diagnostics 2x, rear brakes, software updates, and a new tire)

I bought a 2012 Coupe and a constant issue is the yellow check engine light. These are the findings
1. check engine light;
2. check engine light, red car lift; brake light on, thermostat needed replacement
3. CHECK ENGINE LIGHT: loose intake boot clamp
3. check engine light: software update
4. check engine light on and have yet another appointment 65 miles away.

I bought it at a used car dealership and I have 4 more days to return it for a refund. Advice, suggestions? ideas?

thanks in advance.

 

Sounds like you might have a money pit and it wasn’t maintained as it should have been. Might want to walk away. When I went hunting with wife’s bf, I went over them as well as one can. The 2nd one we looked at, hadn’t been moved in 2 months, so we had a dead battery to deal with but no a big deal, it was the lack of an fluid leaks under it that made me happy. We got it jumped, cleared all the codes and took it out for an hour long test drive, I have bimmerlink on my iPad and phone so it’s always with me. No codes came back, battery charged and she hasn’t been happier.

 

A 2012 Coupe is coming up on 10 years old. If you don’t have the skills to take care of the car on your own, you’ll lose your mind and money having to always take it in to the mechanic. Sounds like your choices are to either take it back on return, or take a deep breath and invest in your skills to start working on the car yourself. If you don’t have the ability or time to do your own diagnostics, sounds like your answer is to return the car.

 

I thinks that's an N14 engine. From what you say so far I'd ditch it and get my money back if I could. I had a 2014 JCW Coupe that I bought new and traded in in 2020 and I put ZERO money into it (50k miles) still had the original brakes. It needed a battery under warranty. (btw the Mini dealer gave me $11k in trade for it).

 

40,440 miles =, should not be that bad unless someone did not take care of it. I have seen this on late model Coupe N14 JCW engines. If its a cooper S then it has the n18 engine and should not have too many issues unless they abused it.

DIY = save money. Mine has 118K on it and i got it with about 19K. If you get them with lower miles then you know what has been done, a MINI dealer can print off the warranty work and what has been done. Some warranties have been extended so check with MINI first with the VIN

Scan it with the schwaben scan tool and see what all comes up. Then go from there after you talk to the MINI dealer first to see if they can cover anything for free since its lower miles.