I am beginning to form a “love/hate” relationship with my Mini. “Pepper” treats me really good most of the time. She corners on rails, pins me back in my seat when I step on it, gets good gas mileage and in general leaves me smiling. But every now and then she makes me hate her a little bit. Like when I left the garage Saturday AM and found a small puddle of a blue oily substance on the floor under where the engine had been. Later on that day I put her up on ramps and found no hint of where it may have come from. This is the 2nd time that this has happened. I also checked the color of the power steering and brake fluids to see if they matched the color of the goop that I found. No match. I know it is not the blue windshield washer fluid as this stuff was thick and oily. Does the manual transmission gearbox contain oil?
Do you think she is just trying to remind me who’s the boss?

 

Hmmm... think it could be the coolant again??

 

your thermostat housing is leaking, check your coolant level, add water not antifreeze, take it in or fix it yourself. Common problem for mini's.

 

She's not leaking fluid, like a Harley-Davidson, She's just "marking her territory"

 

HAHA. Mine was leaking something when i got her. NTB told me that it was my A/C condensating and dripping because it was a small engine. But now i know what it was doing. Thanks rjb

Michael

 

The water pump was replaced at the dealership under warranty by the previous owner about 5k miles ago.

I will have to poke around under there and see if that is it.

 

I believe this is what is happening with my 2006 with just a bit over 10,000 miles. So is this a design flaw that will be permanently fixed when I take it to the dealer (still under warranty), or do they just put in the same designed parts so that this is something for me to look forward to every 2 years/10000 miles?

 

Check your passenger side engine mount for leaks. Not sure if Mini addressed the problem for 06, but it was a common issue on 05's (both mine had leaking mounts).

 

Mine was fixed; its been about 7,000 kms since then and no leaks yet.

They put in the same parts, hoping it wont break again. Its an easy fix.

 

Common sign is that the reservoir tank is low, or drops in level quickly. Mine went from full to empty in 4 days of regular driving. Check the tank and you may notice a leak coming directly from it (indicating a cracked seam on the tank) or crawl underneath and you could probably see a blue residue on some of the tubes and possibly the PS pump area. As I recall, my PS fluid is brown, so don't worry if there is some blue on the PS fan cover as it is directly below the reservoir bottle.

 

Are the engine mounts in the 05's full of blue oily stuff? I had heard that they were some type of fluid mounts?

 

Bingo!

See thread:

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...d.php?t=118242