Monday I had a service light come on after being from the shop two weeks for a rear brake pad change. They reset it all is good. Yesterday the yellow check light comes on. Give a call for an appointment. This will be 3 trips over the hill in one month. Is more to come? Kinda concerned .

MINI just hit the 30k mark.

 

what code did it spit out? need that to really know what is going on and a scanguage is a good investment

phil.

 

Acourse I don't have an OBD scanner. I think I better order one....

 

I support this

 

Yellow check light or service is a notice that something needs service soon. Toggle through the service menu to see what.

 

It is not the service light plus I had just brought it in 2 weeks ago and they said bring it back in the March April time frame.

Can you toggle through the service and see a reminder? A check light is kinda scary...on the brink of possible disaster.

 

Get a scangaugeII(my first investment) and you won't regret it. It does help most of the time when trying to find the codes. Sometimes it'll be difficult to find the code.

 

Yes you can.

I am doing this from memory but it is a series of press release or press hold to see either error messages or service messages.

Use the button on the end of the turn signal stock. This changes what is displayed on the tach. Press and release until you see Set/Info (I believe). Once you see set/info then press again to go to the next menu. Just continue this and you will either see service messages etc.

Hope this helps. There may be a thread on this here but I didn't look.

 

The next door neighbor had a OBD scanner. We hooked it up and read the code: P0304. Cyl.4 Misfire Detected. I noticed the car had been sputtering during start-up.

 

Does the car seem robbed of power on take-off? Does it idle weird as well or does it just start up a little rough? Misfires can be from carbon build-up, bad gas, or worse case (like I had) the connecting rod exploded and sent pieces of metal into the engine. If that's the case then you will have to replace the engine (Mini should cover it since it's a mechanical failure and not driver error). I have about $4000 miles on my new engine and a yellow CEL came on, stayed for a week, and then turned off on its own. Turns out I had just a bad batch of fuel in the car. Since I'm in CO I would imagine there was too much ethanol in the gas. Try octane booster and ignition cleaner in (about $15-20 tops) and see if that solves it. Worth a shot.

 

95% of the time, that code is driven by a bad spark plug or coil pack...

Don't panic, and take a look at the condition of the plug first, then if no fault found there, you could if you want start swapping the coil packs to see if the fault transfers with the suspected bad coil pack...

After that, you may have bad compression on that cylinder, or hopefully a bad injector or wiring to the injector or coil pack...

My car fell into the other 5% - a bad injector on my #1 cylinder (P0301 code) and has run better since that injector was replaced than it had since new!!
Good luck!
E

 

"95% of the time, that code is driven by a bad spark plug or coil pack..."

Hmm co-worker who has a GP said the same thing. I'll take a look at that.

 

Cold Start problem with multiple miss fires on all cylinders; turned out to be bad HPFP. Mini replaced under warranty.

 

+1 for checking the plugs.. I had one that was done and was loosing power under WOT.. was sputtering. Simple first thing to check and very common.

Other maintenance - I just got a crack in my headers re-welded.. I could smell exhaust when I was sitting for a while and there was a hairline crack at one of the original welds.. the leak leaves white residue, so really easy to track down where it was. All fixed

phil.