So made an appointment with my mini dealer because I had a small leak under my car and I thought the steering was making a creeking sound. I had the power steering pump replaced last February as it was creeking and leaking back then.

The leak turned out to be from the transmission cooler line. They did not find any steering problems. I was unable to stay to have the cooler line replaced and they said it should be ok until early next week with limited driving. So I made an appointment and went on my way. I drove about 4 miles and got on the local expressway. When I tried to accelerate the RPMS wavered back and forth from 2000-5000 and I could not gain speed, in fact I was losing speed. I put on my hazards and luckily rolled off of a nearby exit. It was scary and a very busy highway and I was in the left lane.

My car looked like I just murdered a deer when I got out to check it. The hood was red and and red liquid was bleeding from the front grill. AAA towed me back to the dealer. The cooler line had gone and also the cooler exploded everywhere. They spent a great amount of time cleaning the engine.

I hope everything is fine. The car smoked a bit at a traffic light but the dealer said I am burning off all of the oil and degreaser they used to clean the hood.

Sad sad day for me. I am traumatized and may call out of work tonight because I am afraid to drive.

 

Will they fix this under warranty? How old is your MINI?

 

It is an 04 MC with 69000 miles and out of warrenty. The total was $709 with labor. Do you think the smoking is just the burning off of cleaners and oil?

 

More than likely, yes. Since you said it "looked like I just murdered a deer" I'm sure there was transmission fluid EVERYWHERE. Like in nooks and crannies that just couldn't get cleaned very well. Don't sweat it. Glad that repair bill wasn't too bad!

 

Makes me wonder what they were poking around on that caused such an immediate failure. Perhaps it's just a conincidence and not worth worrying about. We've had a few somewhat pricey repairs on our '03 Cooper, but the fixes were done right and the car has been good-to-go each time. I'm sure the same will be true for you.

 

Thanks Wandrur for the reassurance. I just went outside to look at my car and there are multiple small liquid dropps under the front of my car. They are oily and smell greasy perhaps. A fire would probably smell like just a fire I hope. The dealer did say it will take a day or so for everything to run through. I still called out of work tonight.

 

gokartride,

I fit the "know nothing about cars take advantage of me" stereotype and I only hope that they were being honest when they said it was ok to make an appointment for next week. I would have called out of work to wait if it was an emergency. Trust is a gamble I guess. I have had great experiences with this dealer in the past so thats good.

 

It is certainly possible that the dealer's examination sped up the cooler line failure, but I wouldn't necessarily point the finger of blame at them. Those lines can get brittle, and simply checking them or moving them around can speed their failure. But the checking and moving is necessary to know that something is wrong, so... That they assumed it would last for another few days but didn't is really the concern. They should have taken care of it as an immediate problem rather than rescheduled, even if they were busy. That simply wasn't safe for you to be driving like that. I'm just glad there were no serious problems or consequences.

 

So I went about 35 miles today and it is still smoking or hopefully just burning off oil and such. Anyone know if there will be any hot spots to watch out for if I put on hand on the hood after I'm done driving? I got caught by a civilian today sniffing the hood and grill area. It seemed hot to touch only on the front left of the hood. The temperature guage is stable in the middle.