I purchased this 2011 JCW Clubman last year. It's been sitting at 75k miles in my garage for weeks, only use it for the occasional errand.
Took it for the first time on a longer drive this weekend, and on the way back started experiencing misfires. Check engine light turned on and car suddenly lost power on the highway without any notice.
Took it to a local auto repair shop who found this:

"Vehicle came in with a misfire. After scanning the vehicle there were multiple codes. Codes were erased to isolate the issue. Cylinder #4 misfire came back right away. Technician swapped ignition coils with cylinder #3. Erased the code and cylinder #4 misfire came back. Technician then did a compression test. Cylinder #4 was at 0. Cylinders 1, 2 and 3 were even at 175 PSI. Recommend removing the cylinder head to determine the malfunction."

The technician said I am looking at $3.5k in repair costs at a minimum. I bought the car for $7.5k six months ago!
Should I go ahead with the technician's recommendation?
Would a leakdown test do any good?

 

Sorry to hear about your issue. Most likely you have a burnt valve which is not uncommon. 3.5k is too much even for a cylinder rebuild. Depending on where you at, look for few more quotes and even see if someone on this forum could do the service for you.
If you're near philly pa, I would take on the task 🙋‍♂️

 

Appreciate the advice!
I live near Palo Alto in California and labor costs are among the highest in the nation here!
I am even thinking about renting a pick up truck and towing the car all the way down across the Mexican border to fix it there. Any further ideas welcome!

 

if the total cost makes sense, I don't see why not. I had a member ship me his mini from IL and another from MD. you best bet would be wrenching on it by yourself. check newtis.info and realoem.com for how to's and part numbers, respectively.

 

One downside is that if some engine part fails again a week after the Mexico repair, it's much harder to take it back to the mechanic and have it looked into..

Even for someone who's never touched an engine or DIY a car before? This seems like a fairly heavy job!

 

I'm also from the bay area, and a friend gave me his JCW with a similar diagnosis for cheap as the shops around here wanted I believe $3k (in Los Gatos) with some risk of not fixing it if there is something other than a valve. I took off the head - burnt valve on cylinder 3 - and had it rebuilt in Campbell. That was still around $850 including a set of exhaust valves, stem seals, etc. Add a high quality head gasket with the proper thickness (different from the Cooper S), gasket kit, plus new head bolts etc, it all adds up.

People say it's not a lot of work - but it is.

Good luck. Let me know if you want to get rid of it
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I ended up selling it for $3.9k to a boy whose dad is a MINI mechanic. Given the $7.5k purchase price this is essentially just deducting the cost of the repair.
I called him a few days later to check in; he had the car opened and confirmed it was a burnt valve as well. Such a common plague on these MINI's.

I'm quite happy to no longer worry about this.

 

call your insurance company, they will total the car and cut you a check for your investment, you might even make a profit, the N14 engine is not worth fixing ,
if that repair shop doesnt have a $20 inspection camera to put down the sparkplug hole they are lost , run and find another one ,
very simple you put an inspection camera down the sparkplug hole to see if the cyl melted or put air pressure in and see where the air is going
you dont need to tear down anything if you know what your doing .