I have had my cm for a little over a year with 34,000 miles logged. I was motoring a long and Then the warning light came on for over heating and I was stuck. I had the car towed in and the tech found a leaky celinod and they replace it and then the next day I had it back. I drove it as I always do and it happen again with the warning light coming back on for over heating. It was towed back to the dealer and after a day they said the headers were warp and the cylinder walls were bunrt. They called in a mini engineer to advise on the problem because it happen a second time. He made the call to replace the entire engine.

Has anyone heard or know about this happening to any other cm owners?

I hope I did not get a lemon.

 

Ouch. You should find out as much as possible about why the headers would warp and how the cylinder walls burnt. Let us know what you find out, I would love to hear their explanation...and sorry to hear about your troubles.

That's no fun.

 

Very sorry to hear of your issues. I hope it works out for you.

It also makes me wonder who has the most miles on their Countryman at this point. It would be encouraging to know some people with lots of miles that hadn't had any problems. Before I found mine I drove one with 29k miles on it and the seller said he'd had no problems with it.

 

Ouch, that's a shame. Hope they get everything sorted out for you asap.

Of course we don't know exactly what happened, but if the engine was damaged due to the overheating, it points out the advantage of having a coolant temperature gauge versus just a warning light (which only tells you there has been an issue after the fact). Our R53 had a gauge, but the CM does not.

The CM engines are more or less identical to the engines used on other Mini models, and at least based on posts to this website, engines needing complete replacement seem to be rare. Of course that doesn't make you feel any better about yours.

Please let us know if the engine replacement is successful.

 

I suspect that what is warped is the 'head' and not the 'headers.'

 

The dealer was trying to remove the head and one of the spark plugs would not come out because the head becoming warped. I am supposed to get it back on Wednesday. I will keep you posted.

 

It was running great till the day it develop the heat issue. All service was done at the dealer and each service interval was followed.

 

Based on the OP it sounds like classic overheating damage due to coolant loss (since "leaking" was mentioned). Could also be caused by the thermostat staying closed with engine warmed up, but I have not heard of that yet on a Mini (the usual problem is the thermostat staying open with a cold engine). I hope the new engine works out well.

Agree that an engine temperature display of some sort is a good idea on any car. I installed an OBDII-based display the day we got our car.

 

Hey Dave, good point. When the OP mentioned "leaking solinoid", it just never occured to me that what was leaking out was coolant I assume what was leaking was probably a sensor that measures coolant temperature, or something like that.

But in addition to the coolant temperature warning, our CM's also have a low coolant level sensor. At least in theory, the driver would be alerted to the issue long before the coolant level became low enough to cause engine damage such as a warped head.

 

Any recommendation for a obd unit that might work with iPhone 4?

 

Coolant level sensor?

 

Sucks to hear. A good friend of mine had a similar issue inhis r56, but his second and the big failure just happened a few weeks ago, 6 months after the first cooling issues, and 3 months after his warranty expired .

There are several of them out there, I use the Kiwi Wifi.

 

The thing is the coolant reservoir was not low.
Thanks for the info the OBD.