I was having my oil changed at the Mini dealer today - in Peabody, MA, and was told that the oil pan gasket was leaking. Given I have owned more than 20 cars in my lifetime, between myself, my wife and my 3 kids, and have never experienced this in the past I am puzzled if others have heard of this happening on their MINI. BTW, I have never seen oil on my garage floor under the car.

The dealer, by the way, wants $435.00 to replace the seal, which I believe is made of cork. When I asked the dealer for his reaction he simply stated MINI would not take any responsibility.

As back ground the car has roughly 35K miles and is kept in a heated garage in the Boston, MA area and the original owner was from Southern, CA. I am 58 years old and while I do occasionally drive in a spirited manner I would not classify myself as hard on a car.

My other thought is that the same dealer replaced the timing chain tensioner late in the warranty period of the car. My question is can these two be related? I have no idea what disassembly is required to work on the tensioner.

Any thoughts or advice is appreciated on any of the above. Thanks.

 

Mine leaks oil too, but I'm not sure where from exactly. Started leaking at about 50k miles. I have heard BMW's are known for oil leaks, and that seems to carry over to the MINI...

 

Judging from the parts diagram on RealOEM, it's hard to see how they would have disturbed the original pan/its seal from fooling with the tensioner and chain.

The oil pan gasket isn't subject to movement (other than engine vibration, maybe) so driving habits wouldn't play a role, particularly. So that leaves age (making the gasket a bit brittle; but 5'sh years old isn't really old), or original installation or part manufacture defect as a culprit for the failure you're experiencing.

If you're not seeing floor drips, it may be more "weeping" versus "leaking", but of course at rest, the oil is settled in the bottom of the pan away from the seal.

If you're keeping an eye on your oil level, you'll be able to gauge whether this seems like an urgent repair or not (i.e., it weeps a little oil, no big deal, hardly noticable on the oil level; versus it's losing a quart every 500 miles, needs fixed now).

Your quote is almost all labor, of course. An oil pan gasket is $17 aftermarket, MINI dealer price would be more (if it's still available; RealOEM shows it as "Ended", and just a sealant being specified). Remove 16 bolts, clean the surfaces, install the seal/gasket reinstall. Replace the oil (and filter too, most likely, to start everything fresh). My favorite app for repair estimating, RepairPal, shows this repair from $407 to $500'sh so what you were given is in that range. MINI shop labor is $125/hr in St. Louis where I live.

Being under my MCS a few times, it looks fairly "simple" to service but I don't have my service manual handy to see if anything else is in the way to complicate removing/replacing the oil pan. Others may know.

HTH.

 

^ This guy has good advice.

The dealer wouldn't have messed with the oil pan gasket when doing the timing chain. There are possible explanations for a leaking oil pan gasket. If the rest of the car is in good repair the most likely explanation is just a bad/old gasket. It's pretty simple to replace yourself but you'll need a good in-lb torque wrench so you don't strip the pan bolts. If RealOEM doesn't list a gasket anymore they could be going the way of many other manufacturers and just using a sealant to seal the oil pan to the block. So you would just want to pick up some Ultra Black and reseal the pan.

It's possible that you have excessive crankcase pressure which has caused a leak to spring in the oil pan gasket. If you fix the oil pan gasket the next weakest seal would just start leaking. Could be caused from a plugged up PCV system.

If it was me I would just monitor oil levels and for drips on the floor. It's unlikely that the leak is significant if you haven't been seeing leaks on the floor.

 

All of the above is great advice, thanks. Does anyone know if the oil level is below the top of the oil pan when the car is not running. In other words when the car is off and sitting, there is no risk that significant amounts of oil will be lost.

 

If you don't see any oil dripping on the garage floor overnight, you know it's not a major leak. Seepage, at best.

Are you sure it's the oil pan gasket seeping, and not something above it that's dripping over the oil pan (turbo feed line, valve cover gasket, etc)?

I would not trust the dealer on this 100%, especially if they are marking up a 1 hour labor job into a $435 estimate.
If you are comfortable DIY-ing this job - go for it, using MINI gasket sealant in place of the deprecated gasket:
http://www.realoem.com/bmw/showparts...10&hg=11&fg=10

If you are not comfortable DIY-ing this job, take it to a reputable independent!

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Here is a thread to where we talked about the oil pan gasket which went from cork / paper to the sealant, you can still get the paper one from elring . Also to check if its the turbo oil line also leaking above the gasket and then down the front. Check the connection from the oil filter housing to the side of the engine those small gaskets also can leak and then drip down right above the exhaust making it look like a pan gasket. If everything is dry above the pan. Then its the pan gasket.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...e-cause-2.html

Thanks