Hi All.

This is my first post here. I am a novice when it comes to cars, so please be patient.

I was on the last 10 miles of 250 mile trip last night. I was on a highway in one of the higher gears, when check engine when off and engine started sputtering. I lost almost all power coming from the engine, and you can hear it pop, like Harely Davidsons.. Iwas able to roll it home in 2nd gear, slowly but carefully. I pulled out my OBD gadget and it listed P300, 302, 303 and 304 codes. So i have questions now.

1. I understand how to start diagnosing misfires, but before i start chasing the ail i was wondering if there is something else that could all of a sudden cause 3 out of 4 cylinders to misfire at the same time?
2. Is it possible, that there is a chain of events that could cause , for example, 3 spark plugs to fail, or 3 coils to go bad ? All at the same time...
3. I have issues with muffler. I bought the car with aftermarket muffler, smaller and louder (i hate it), and it seems that it developed pinhole leaks - it was welded to the exhaust pipe. Could this be a starting point ?

Nothing out of ordinary happened on that trip, though I was driving on a rather bumpy road (Cross Bronx Expressway)

2013 R56S with some 56k miles

Thank you all

 

maybe you just blew a coil pack and fouled all your plugs and now shes running rough. I currently have 72k miles and at 46k miles one of my coil packs blew and i had to limp her to the shop. They replaced 1 coil pack and all 4 plugs. I would start with checking coils and plugs, im no expert though so this is just my 2 cents. i also have a 2013 R56S

Edit: I do not know what could have caused a chain of events to lead to 3 cylinders misfiring, :(

 

Well, this kind of got resolved on its own.. for now. Next day i wanted to check it out.. and car was working normally. Cleared the codes drove it for 20 miles and no issues.. still have no issues.I am assuming that this will show up again eventually.. thanks @CakeEater

 

i also want you to know that currently my car is going in to the shop for new plugs coils battery, and some other stuff. My car was running really rough upon start up the last few weeks and it almost seemed as if i had misfiring in multiple cylinders, but once it got up to temp it was fine. It is really strange with these cars how you can have issues that are on and off for significant periods of time. Another example of an on and off issue for me is that my battery would trigger a service warning for the longest time showing me a yellow car on a lift, but for the past 3 weeks, it has been showing me it a lot less but it is still the old OEM battery in there. I dont understand what changes in the cars overnight for it to just be different the next day lol

 

Just a wild guess, but I'd go for loose or corroded electrical plugs. A few squirts of electronic switch cleaner, maybe some di-electric grease & a little sandpaper & Vaseline on the ground & battery connections would not go amiss.
MINIs are very sensitive to the slightest interruption to their network.

 

@mladenko I found this thread when searching for the issue I'm having with my R57 and it sounds like you dealt with something similar. Every 50-100 miles my car will flash the MIL and go into limp mode always with the P030x codes for one or more cylinders. If I restart the car it runs fine but the CEL remains. Have replaced plugs and coils but that didn't fix it. I'm not sure whether these are actual misfires or just electrical gremlins since the car seems to run fine overall. Did the issue ever resurface in your R56?

 

The issue was spark plugs on my end. Replaced them and everything worked fine. And still is after this many years Good luck !

 

I'm following up on my previous posts in this thread in case it's helpful for anyone else who runs into this issue. My problem ended up being a crack in the air mass meter boot (air duct going to the turbo). It took a while to find since it was on the underside but once that was replaced and the turbo was getting the right amount of air, the misfires went away and haven't come back.