R56 One thing after another... (Repair story)
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2nd Gear
Joined: May 2013
Posts: 123
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From: Charlotte, NC
One thing after another... (Repair story)
After thinking long and hard about what actually happened, I have come to this conclusion.
Last Saturday night I was at the car wash and sprayed my car down pretty good. Either feeling good about a nicely washed car and a full tank of gas or impatience took over when I was in sport mode and a pretty wide turn was ahead with a yellow light. I downshift to third and hit about 50 MPH in the turn.
The back end swung out like I've never seen on a front-wheel drive vehicle. I tried to correct it as best I could, but I've only been in that kind of a situation when trying to drift in a rear-wheel drive car. Needless to say, I'm regretting not just waiting at the red light.
I over corrected the car and spun in the opposite direction, leading my MINI sideways (driver side first) into a pretty beefy curb. The left rear wheel took most of the damage and popped the rest of the car up and over the curb. I was on the sidewalk and expected to have broken at least two of the wheels.
Luckily, I barely bent the lip of one and got a little curb rash on the other wheel. On the way back home I heard a strange noise at 50mph similar to when you have a bad wheel bearing. I knew at this point that I needed to align and balance my wheels for sure.
Today I got my car on a lift at the dealership I work for. (On my day off, too)
This is what I found.
The lower control arm mounting bracket bushing I guess is what it's called (?) had been pushed out significantly. I removed the lower control arm...
It took some damage.
After I pushed the bushing back into the slot, I noticed something that just made everything so much better...
A nice big crack through the entire bushing. I had my parts counterpersons call the local MINI/BMW dealer to see if I could buy just the bushing. NOPE. Gotta buy the whole control arm. Greaaaaaaat. I said screw it, pushed it back to where it needed to be, and aligned the car.
Not to my surprise the alignment was absolutely horrendous.
Gotta fix that.
All better! (The left rear is .1 degrees off and that was about as good as I could get it with the time allotted.)
Next I took the wheels off and made sure they were all balanced and they were. Checked air pressure. None were losing air. Now all that's left is to upgrade to 17s and figure out if that noise is or isn't the wheel bearing. Then the MINI is as good as fixed.
Lesson to learn here: Even though a MINI is front-wheel drive. It can be thrown around a corner sideways. I wouldn't recommend doing that, though.
Last Saturday night I was at the car wash and sprayed my car down pretty good. Either feeling good about a nicely washed car and a full tank of gas or impatience took over when I was in sport mode and a pretty wide turn was ahead with a yellow light. I downshift to third and hit about 50 MPH in the turn.
The back end swung out like I've never seen on a front-wheel drive vehicle. I tried to correct it as best I could, but I've only been in that kind of a situation when trying to drift in a rear-wheel drive car. Needless to say, I'm regretting not just waiting at the red light.
I over corrected the car and spun in the opposite direction, leading my MINI sideways (driver side first) into a pretty beefy curb. The left rear wheel took most of the damage and popped the rest of the car up and over the curb. I was on the sidewalk and expected to have broken at least two of the wheels.
Luckily, I barely bent the lip of one and got a little curb rash on the other wheel. On the way back home I heard a strange noise at 50mph similar to when you have a bad wheel bearing. I knew at this point that I needed to align and balance my wheels for sure.
Today I got my car on a lift at the dealership I work for. (On my day off, too)
This is what I found.
The lower control arm mounting bracket bushing I guess is what it's called (?) had been pushed out significantly. I removed the lower control arm...
It took some damage.
After I pushed the bushing back into the slot, I noticed something that just made everything so much better...
A nice big crack through the entire bushing. I had my parts counterpersons call the local MINI/BMW dealer to see if I could buy just the bushing. NOPE. Gotta buy the whole control arm. Greaaaaaaat. I said screw it, pushed it back to where it needed to be, and aligned the car.
Not to my surprise the alignment was absolutely horrendous.
Gotta fix that.
All better! (The left rear is .1 degrees off and that was about as good as I could get it with the time allotted.)
Next I took the wheels off and made sure they were all balanced and they were. Checked air pressure. None were losing air. Now all that's left is to upgrade to 17s and figure out if that noise is or isn't the wheel bearing. Then the MINI is as good as fixed.
Lesson to learn here: Even though a MINI is front-wheel drive. It can be thrown around a corner sideways. I wouldn't recommend doing that, though.
After thinking long and hard about what actually happened, I have come to this conclusion.
Last Saturday night I was at the car wash and sprayed my car down pretty good. Either feeling good about a nicely washed car and a full tank of gas or impatience took over when I was in sport mode and a pretty wide turn was ahead with a yellow light. I downshift to third and hit about 50 MPH in the turn.
The back end swung out like I've never seen on a front-wheel drive vehicle. I tried to correct it as best I could, but I've only been in that kind of a situation when trying to drift in a rear-wheel drive car. Needless to say, I'm regretting not just waiting at the red light.
I over corrected the car and spun in the opposite direction, leading my MINI sideways (driver side first) into a pretty beefy curb. The left rear wheel took most of the damage and popped the rest of the car up and over the curb. I was on the sidewalk and expected to have broken at least two of the wheels.
Luckily, I barely bent the lip of one and got a little curb rash on the other wheel. On the way back home I heard a strange noise at 50mph similar to when you have a bad wheel bearing. I knew at this point that I needed to align and balance my wheels for sure.
Today I got my car on a lift at the dealership I work for. (On my day off, too)
This is what I found.
The lower control arm mounting bracket bushing I guess is what it's called (?) had been pushed out significantly. I removed the lower control arm...
It took some damage.
After I pushed the bushing back into the slot, I noticed something that just made everything so much better...
A nice big crack through the entire bushing. I had my parts counterpersons call the local MINI/BMW dealer to see if I could buy just the bushing. NOPE. Gotta buy the whole control arm. Greaaaaaaat. I said screw it, pushed it back to where it needed to be, and aligned the car.
Not to my surprise the alignment was absolutely horrendous.
Gotta fix that.
All better! (The left rear is .1 degrees off and that was about as good as I could get it with the time allotted.)
Next I took the wheels off and made sure they were all balanced and they were. Checked air pressure. None were losing air. Now all that's left is to upgrade to 17s and figure out if that noise is or isn't the wheel bearing. Then the MINI is as good as fixed.
Lesson to learn here: Even though a MINI is front-wheel drive. It can be thrown around a corner sideways. I wouldn't recommend doing that, though.
Last Saturday night I was at the car wash and sprayed my car down pretty good. Either feeling good about a nicely washed car and a full tank of gas or impatience took over when I was in sport mode and a pretty wide turn was ahead with a yellow light. I downshift to third and hit about 50 MPH in the turn.
The back end swung out like I've never seen on a front-wheel drive vehicle. I tried to correct it as best I could, but I've only been in that kind of a situation when trying to drift in a rear-wheel drive car. Needless to say, I'm regretting not just waiting at the red light.
I over corrected the car and spun in the opposite direction, leading my MINI sideways (driver side first) into a pretty beefy curb. The left rear wheel took most of the damage and popped the rest of the car up and over the curb. I was on the sidewalk and expected to have broken at least two of the wheels.
Luckily, I barely bent the lip of one and got a little curb rash on the other wheel. On the way back home I heard a strange noise at 50mph similar to when you have a bad wheel bearing. I knew at this point that I needed to align and balance my wheels for sure.
Today I got my car on a lift at the dealership I work for. (On my day off, too)
This is what I found.
The lower control arm mounting bracket bushing I guess is what it's called (?) had been pushed out significantly. I removed the lower control arm...
It took some damage.
After I pushed the bushing back into the slot, I noticed something that just made everything so much better...
A nice big crack through the entire bushing. I had my parts counterpersons call the local MINI/BMW dealer to see if I could buy just the bushing. NOPE. Gotta buy the whole control arm. Greaaaaaaat. I said screw it, pushed it back to where it needed to be, and aligned the car.
Not to my surprise the alignment was absolutely horrendous.
Gotta fix that.
All better! (The left rear is .1 degrees off and that was about as good as I could get it with the time allotted.)
Next I took the wheels off and made sure they were all balanced and they were. Checked air pressure. None were losing air. Now all that's left is to upgrade to 17s and figure out if that noise is or isn't the wheel bearing. Then the MINI is as good as fixed.
Lesson to learn here: Even though a MINI is front-wheel drive. It can be thrown around a corner sideways. I wouldn't recommend doing that, though.
Now try to put a h-sport competition rear sway bar on and then you'll have more fun taking curbs;-).
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