So....my first time changing the oil in our 2005 MCS. I followed the DIY instructions completely. I'm not foreign to changing the oil in cars, but this is my first go for the Mini. When I started the car, the oil "under pressure" sprayed like a wide shower out of the bottom of the motor!

The only two things I removed and reinstalled were the drain plug and the filter. I looked under the car and there was no oil coming out of the drain plug and the area around the filter cap is dry. WTF??

I used the mini filter, new plug and mini oil??

What and how could I have screwed up? again, it poured out under pressure when I started the car.

Please help and calm me down. Thx

 

Bet it is a bad o-ring in the filter cap.....unless you really banged something hard on the back of the engine and broke an oil line...very unlikly.
I would check the filter cap oring....but looks like you just have to get under it and look!!

 

2nd on the oil filter cap theory.

 

Thanks guys.

But why would the cap around the filter be dry then??

I'm going out to check. How would I know if the o ring is defective? I ordered the package from mini mania.com

 

 

Gold star for you guys! Pulled out the filter cap and "o" ring was shredded!

Why and how? Before I put in another one...please advise me on the correct way to do this so I don't shred another one.

 

Take your finger and dip it into some new oil and coat the ring before placing the ring on the filter cap.

 

Yup...Good to go!

Just started the car and all seems good. I probably lost a quart of oil in the spray episode. Ordered some more 5-30 from mini mania.

Question, I started the car...it is no longer spraying or leaking. Even though I lost a lot of oil, if I shredded the o ring again, then it should have had enough oil to spray again? Yes? FYI...the oil pressure light is still off.

Thank guys! Now I can sleep tonight.

 

Hi,oil coat the o-ring and make sure it is in the correct place on the cap and do not over tighten.

 

Yup...just toss a quart of you favorite oil in, and start driving!!
Mobil 1, etc are all fine....just a good quality syenthic...if you want to use only mini oil fine, top off with a good syenthic oil, and use that at your next oil change....
And check you oil level regularly...mini's burn oil...

 

Was the ring in its groove? I wonder how it got so shredded? Dry the last install?

Phil.

 

bet it was dry, or it slipped out of the grove, and got caught in the threads.....

 

I have had a lot of old British sports cars (50's and 60's) with canister-type oil filters. I was astonished to see what amounted to a return to that on the MINI. What, those clever engineers couldn't figure out a way to use a cartridge? Maybe they were angling for oil-dripping British authenticity.

 

Just as likely (50/50?) a return for 'green'. Why manufacture a metal case that is designed to be thrown away if you don't have to?
I've got a 54MG - the oil canister is the least of leak worries!

 

i have seen allot of people replace there oil filter, and a good habit while taking off your old oil filter is to double check to see if the old o-ring came off with the oil filter. allot of times the old o-ring gets stuck on the engine block, so once you start installing the new oil filter you will end up having 2 o-rings installed ( new and old ) and that's a big reason for oil leaking from the filter area