Hey everyone! I bought my first mini today, a 2005 cooper s, and am very excited! I'm just trying to familiarize my self with the car, and get a grip on maintenance. I'm pretty familiar with most common issues after doing a lot of research, but one thing I encountered today for the first time was the supercharger failing. I read somewhere that superchargers can start fail on the s series around 100k miles. How common is this? Are there any other important maintenance things I should know about other than staying on top of the fluid changes?

Thanks in advance!

 

Welcome aboard. What failed on the SC? Yes there are things you can do to maintain your SC if you can do the work.
Here is how to change the fluids https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ge-how-to.html
Here is how to replace it if need be https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...night-diy.html

Post some pics of your MINI and good luck.

 

Thanks for the reply! Should I be regularly changing the oil in the supercharger? If so, how often? Also how common are a complete failures that would require me to replace it? I'll try and get some pics up in a bit!

 

It is quite a job to check/ change the sc oil, so maybe service every 100k? They seem to fail from about 60k to......never. I pulled my first charger (running a reduction pulley) at 191k. When I pulled ir apart it still had oil and lookes like new. It is now my spare. My current charger has over 110k and I plan on doing a service on it this summer.

The part that fails is the water pump gears, I think I have only seen one sc fail anywhere else.(ie front bearings)

Congrats on the 05

Nik

 

Some cars seemed to have a bad seal on the bottom of the sc where the gears for the waterpump attatch....oil gets low, oil leaks out...gear grind up.
Cost to do a sc lube is almost the same to swap out a sc, minus a sc....it is 90% labour...and many folks who are not proficient at turning a wrech cause more problems than they fix....
The sc is a wear item....imo it has lasted this long, run it till it fails or the boost is too low, then install a rebuilt unit....desgin life is said to be 110,000 miles give or take...some go more...some less. Lubing it ONLY solves the lube issue...it does not replacing bearings, seals or tighten up tolerances...that is what a rebuild is for....about $900 with you old one in trade for a quality rebuild....ebay crap (yes crap rebuild) is less.....

 

If you're doing the labor yourself, you could always replace it with a Sprintex or other aftermarket SC. Ya know, if you got a couple grand layin around.

 

And a couple grand to get it tuned right.

 

Really appreciate everyone's response! Thanks for helping me get familiar with me new mini! Here's a picture of the yet un-named mini!

 

Or throw it in the trash and go for big power and convert it to turbo.

 

But then it wont be reliable anymore. It would be like a R56 then and always break down. LMAO

 

And with that I am out!

 

Well you took the fun out of that.