Alright guys, I'm convinced that I might own the most unreliable cooper S of them all.

In the past 15k miles that I've owned I have gone through a power steering pump, header, radiator, wheel bearing and speed sensor (both are broken again). And now I'm facing what I believe could the biggest problem of them all.

It all begun after a heavy snow fall in Boston, after shoveling my buddy's driveway where my car was parked I decided to start it ahead of time to get it to warm up before making my back home.. But, when I went for it the car wouldn't start. All you would hear is a clicking sound coming from the starter attempting to turn the engine over. So I got a couple of friends to push the car so I could throw it in 2nd to get it to start.. After 3-4 tries we weren't able to get it running, that's where it got me puzzled. So I left it there for the night and went back in the morning to have it towed away, but when I tried cranking it for the hell of it the car started right up. But now there is a ticking sound coming from the engine.

Same thing happened on the next day, and it all went on for about a week until the starter fried itself.. It was really stupid of me driving it with the issue, but I was forced to in order to make it to school and work.

So this morning I replaced the starter with a brand new one from MINI with high hopes of getting the car running so I could hunt the ticking sound down, but when I tried cranking it the same thing happened again.. No start, at this point I have a few things in mind that could be causing the engine to seize such as the timing belt retainer, crank damper or even something supercharger related..

Has anyone come across this problem before? I tried searching on here but nothing directly relates to this issue.. Any help would be appreciated.

 

The fast clicking leads me to think it's the battery, but the sudden fix sounds more of a ground wire issue/wire to the back of the stater isn't tight on the starter side or where the other end connects to.