I posted this in the problems/issues forum as well, but this seems to get more traffic.

I was driving home last night, entering the freeway, and had the RPM's around 3k. Went to accelerate to merge onto the freeway and the rpm's hung around 3.5k and wouldn't climb from there. I gave a little more gas and heard a small pop sound and the dashboard lit up like a christmas tree, still couldn't accelerate.

I pulled over to the side of the road, shut the car off and popped the hood. Didn't see anything suspicious so I waited a minute and started the car again. The CEL stayed on but everything else cleared and the car drove just fine.

I was close to home so I drove a few miles and parked in the garage. I'll take a look at it this weekend but does anyone have any idea what it might be?

Car is a 2006 Cooper S JCW.

 

have you plugged it in to see the fault codes? had a very similar experience and it was the cam sensor at fault. ignored it for a couple of days and the CEL was intermittent and gas mileage was down to 29.XX (from 37.XX).

try to go somewhere and have it scanned... that would give you a better idea on what's at fault. hopefully a specific one.