Was driving perfectly fine. Car is pulling fantastically! But I was idling for about 5 minutes and I started to see smoke come, opened the hood and smoking was coming from my thermostat housing. I also saw smoke come from the side nipple from my coolant expansion tank. I do not know if this is a blown head gasket or just a poor thermostat housing. I do not have oil and coolant mixed up but I topped off my coolant and bleed it the other day and checked and there was no coolant.
Here is a video of it. I cannot tell if the smoke is also coming from the side nipple of my coolant expansion tank.
Let me know thanks!

 

Most likely thermostat. Your video is very difficult to see clearly, but a thermostat and housing replacement is two bolts and two hose clamps and less than $100, so do that and see if it resolves the problem… cause head gasket is a whole different ballgame.

If you want, you can put a borescope into the spark plug openings and quickly see if coolant has entered the cylinder nearest the thermostat. But I’d just replace the thermostat and housing.

You should not drive the car until it is repaired, because if you do have head gasket failure and you drive the car, you can severely damage the engine.

 

Expansion tanks and thermostat housings are pretty infamous for failing on these cars. BMW's legendary government-mandated recycled ABS plastic is well known for its inferiority and short life (thanks Frau Merkel!). The housing gasket also likes to fail particularly when over-torqued, as is often the case when taking the car to the Stealership and other stunningly incompetent repair facilities.
>Should probably do a leak down test to make sure it isn't the head gasket
>should swap out the obviously blown thermostat housing and gasket, replacing the former with the aluminum URO one
>also aluminum expansion tank and upper bleed pipe with brass screw, all made by URO, new tank cap
>be mindful of thermostat / gasket designs - some have the three tabs, some don't. Make sure the stat and gasket are matched in that context and that you install the stat with the little hole at the top to allow the system to burp the air out
>"while you're in there" possibly do supercharger service & water pump, radiator swap, oil cooler / gasket
>fan resistor - another common failure point and overheating factor
>hoses
>belt
Pelican Parts has a pretty good rundown on the burp / bleed procedure in their tech article section; the key is front end elevation and putting the heater on "HI" / max temperature with heater blower fan on lowest setting
Hope this helps and it's not a head gasket.

 

It was a cracked thermostat housing. Thank you! Ordered and installing an aluminum thermostat housing from uro tuning. I havent been able to bleed the coolant as I have a boost leak but I appreciate your help!

 

Yeah! Got it on the first guess. Glad it’s not a head gasket.
The Force is strong with this one.

 

Bleed the Mini but smoke began to come from the radiator, I am thinking it’s because of the coolant that drained from the upper rad hose. Will let it dry and l turn the car on and let idle to see if it smokes again. If it doesn’t the mini is finally driveable!

 

Man- talk about perseverance!
'glad to know you haven't given up
Crossing my fingers and toes that everything works out.