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I work for a car dealership in Northern California, and today I purchased a 2005 Cooper S with 92k miles for the lot. We sell quite a few of these cars so I was happy with the purchase. The cars runs and drives great!
Today I drove the car from Reno NV to Sacramento CA (about 130 miles) and everything was going great until I was about 10 minutes from home.
I came to a stop light, and on green I started to accelerate when all of a sudden the battery light and check engine light came on. At that moment the car lost all power. It would idle fine, but even at WOT it would barely move. I got it to the nearest safe area to pull off the road and it started to overheat. I immediately turn the heater on full blast and turn the car off.
After it sat for ~15 minutes, I fired it back up and saw that the serpentine belt wasn't moving at all. The crankshaft pulley bolt was spinning but the pulley itself wasn't moving at all.
I am just wondering if this has happened to anyone before and what the problem/fix ended up being.
The harmonic balancer is one of those items on the MINI that seem to be a "when it fails, not if it fails item." When the balancer fails, it separates into two pieces, causing all of the accessory items driven by the serpentine belt to stop spinning. However, the harmonic balancer was redesigned for the 2004 model year to address a problem with the old design. I'd investigate further. Did you smell burnt rubber? This is what the one in our R53 looked like. Here if needed: http://www.pelicanparts.com/catalog/..._pg1.htm#item1. More info on it in this NAM thread HERE.
Sorry to hear that, AWDmaster. You might want to check out the install info for a new one, especially the part about replacing the timing cover oil seal along with the damper, at this link:
