I must not be searching well enough, but im SURE this question has been asked and answered numerous times.

How many miles on average will the stock supercharger last on the R53 Cooper S, considering no engine mods.

and when it does reach the end of its useful life, what do you guys do? rebuild? replace? and cost?

Thanks guys!!

 

A couple members on NAM have reported 190-200k w/o servicing the S/C. But here's a long thread that deals with S/C failure...

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ater-pump.html

 

Great deal for a DIY project on one of these.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eB...m=260725415204

 

When the SC fails our most affordable option is a re-build.

 

I still think this thread should be a sticky

 

Reviving this thread once again. Still trying to decide what to do about the supercharger, run it into the ground or do preventive maintenance on it. If it did not involve pulling the front end off to get to the oil fill bolts, I would do it in a heartbeat.

I am hoping more folks will chime into this thread and tell us their experience, how long their supercharger lasted.

 

94k on mine. no problems at this point.

 

I bought a nearly new, takeoff supercharger from a car that was upgraded to a full JCW package recently. Paid about $600 for the supercharger and it is in superb condition. I wanted to have a spare to see if I could machine some adapters to allow checking the oil levels without removing all the surrounding components. Turns out I could actually fab up a fitting for the front/snout end since the oil level plug is fairly accessible behind the dipstick tube. However, the water pump drive end is really buried under a lot of stuff. Not very practical to make a remote oil check for this.

Unfortunately, it seems like most supercharger failures occur in the water pump drive end since it holds only 1.5-2 oz of oil. The end plate machine work is a little rough and when I removed my end plate there was almost no gasket sealant at all on the two aluminum surfaces. I can see where a slight seepage would deplete this chamber over time causing the gears to grind themselves into paste.

I resealed both ends with a special Loctite sealant that uses a primer and filled the chambers with the correct amount of oil, about 6 oz in the front, 1.5-2 in the rear. I am confident the mating surfaces are properly sealed now and will swap out this supercharger when the opportunity presents itself.

For those who would like to service their superchargers, I'd recommend planning on removing it from the engine so you can pull the end covers and clean inside. This will allow for applying a good sealant to the surfaces to prevent future leakage. Also a good time to change out the water pump and replace any O-rings/seals in that area. I'm planning on doing this about every 60k or so as part of the overall maintenance program. I figure that if I'm already doing the serpentine belt and checking everything else, I might as well go ahead and do the full monty. Depending on the condition of the original supercharger, I'll either do the rebuild myself or send it out for a major overhaul.

Eric

 

Do you know what year the "take-off" came from? If it's from an '06, you might get a bonus. at some point in '06, MINI used the same supercharger on the standard S as was used for the JCW. (same internal coating I believe).

 

Yes, my new supercharger has the black coated rotors, came off an '06. Which has me wondering: if it came off of a car that was getting a JCW kit, what's different about the '06 JCW blower other than the pulley size?

Eric

 

Eric
The only differrence was the size of the pulley. They actually started supplying the coated rotors in '05.
Steve

 

Yes, '05 and '06 MCS' have the teflon-coated rotors stock. Only way '02-'04 superchargers have them is with the JCW kit.

My old '02 MCS had 115K miles on the original supercharger. Many go 100K+ miles before needing some kind of maintenance. In some cases just the water pump is an issue (since it's attached on the end opposite the pulley). You can always opt to pick up a used one along the way and keep it handy. Stiegemeyer (http://www.stiegemeier.com/pricing.html) offers several rebuild options ranging from $400-900. If you want to DIY, read this thread for some extra info: https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...t-rebuild.html.

 

So the 05-06 are more durable?

 

It has nothing to do with durability. The only bonus with the '05-'06 superchargers is the teflon-coated rotors. The older models have a different coating; I'm not sure what it is.

 

The coating is meant to reduce heat transfer, and improve the sealing of the rotors to yhr casing.....this improves the efficiency of the sc a bit....that is why ( one of the reasons) that 05+ S cars were rated for a few more HP.
Since the lube does/can seep by the seals as they age, a new unservced sc might be better....but with a QUALITY rebuild, they should be all about the same durability wise.....