Been having coolant leaking issues that I traced to a bad water pump (08 MCS with 90K miles). I was supposed to drive 4.5 hours to the Albuquerque dealership over Christmas break to have the timing chain recall done but I didn't want to chance it with the defective water pump and the fact I was having to refill the coolant every 60 miles or so.

I decided to change the pump myself after being told the job would be around $700 from the dealership. I ordered the parts from a vendor here and was able to get a pump, belt, and new drive pulley for about $140. In all, the job took me around 6 hours from start to finish. Nothing was super complicated about the install, but it was very frustrating trying to reach into all those tight spaces.

The hardest part seemed to be getting the drive pully onto the new pump. I ended up having to loosen the engine mount on the driver's side and have a friend push the engine towards the driver's side while I dropped the pulley into place.

I managed to get everything back into place and now I have no leaks and my heater works again! The only down side was I managed to dent my oil pan when I was jacking the motor up. I used a blaok of wood but I guess it wasn't big enough to distribute the weight.

I hope I don't have to do anything else to the car because nothing looks like a simple job on these.

 

Congrats on your first MINI DIY success!

There is nothing complicated about working on a MINI vs. other cars, except extremely tight clearances in the engine bay.

In all likelihood, you will be going back for more things down the road (turbo oil line leaks, thermostat housing coolant leaks, oil filter housing leaks, etc).

Sometimes it helps to put the radiator in "service" mode to buy more space:


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Your water pump should have been covered by the recall too. Might have saved you a headache.

 

There is no recall for the water pump.