Today I completed the Windy City BMW Autocross School. Let me start off by saying wow! I loved my Mini before, and tapping into the ABS, spinning some tires, and flying around circles made me appreciate her much, much more. What a beast! and a cute one .

As I was leaving, however, I noticed a decent sized collection of an odd colored green fluid around the inside part of the rim in the right rear. I stared at it dumbfounded for a few and then proceeded to the car wash (which didn't seem to eliminate it) before heading home.

Have there been any other cases of "icky green stuff" or am I just being a dork and probably just hit something going around the track?

Obviously if the collection gets bigger while sitting in the garage overnight I should probably pay more attention to it, but I figured I'd just get some initial feedback. Thanks!

 

If its in the rear, the only thing I would think it would be is brake fluid. I don't remember what color the stock brake fluid was in my car. Does anyone know if its green? If it is brake fluid, you need to be careful for several reasons...1) You could lose your braking ability on ALL of your wheels (they use the same reservoir of brake fluid) 2) The least of your problems in comparison to not being able to stop the car is that brake fluid works very well at stripping the paint off metal (i.e. your rims and your car)

If you think that you are able to..do a couple of things to check it out. If you want to see how much brake fluid is left in your reservoir, open your hood and towards the right hand side, their is a small reservoir that says something like "DOT Approved Brake Fluid Only". Open that up and see how much fluid is in there...hopefully you can at least see some. Also, take off the wheel where you are seeing the leak. At the back of your brake rotor, theres a little nipple that should have a little rubber cover on it...see if that is where the fluid is coming from. There should be a little bolt close to it that opens that valve to be able to drain it. You may want to see if that is loose just to see if that's where your problem is from. If it did somehow get loose, you will need to bleed your brake system to make sure there isn't any air in your brake lines. Once again, only do this if you are comfortable with it. Above all, be careful...brakes are one of those things that are definitely not optional.

If that isn't the problem, maybe someone else has another idea

 

The stock brake fluid is very clear, with a bit of a amber tint to it. Definitely not green. If it was brake fluid you'd have diminished braking & the brake light on the dash would be shining at you. Open the bonnet & check the level of the master cylinder just in case. I'm at a loss as to what that green stuff could be. SWAG here...grease from a wheel bearing??

 

The only green fluid I've seen is coolant but I don't see how it could have gotten on your rear wheel.

 

Could it be tire Slime? The sealant stuff? I know it coagulates upon extended contact with air. Maybe someone punctured a tire or cracked a bead & leaked some onto the track or skidpad.

It's a nuclear green.

Not that it belongs in your MINI's tires, but someone may have thought they had a good idea.

bill

 

Holy Guacamole, You've been Slimed.

Who you gonna call?




I'm thinking grease from a bearing or maybe some debris picked up on the road.

 

Haha it did look pretty "nuclear". And yes... I did feel like I was slimed. After a great day autocrossing it was kind of a bummer to see that crap on my wheel.

But I haven't seen it appear again, so I'm sure everything is alright. Well... besides the staining on the wheel that I haven't had a chance to get completely off yet, but it could be worse... right?

 

May want to check the Batt compartment, I've seen batteries go bad on other cars and have a lime green ooze, though the box should have cought it all and I'd be amazed you still had power to start the car its the only green I could think of being back there unless you had greenstuff pads and mixed them with something, but I think likely story is picked up something off the cones.

 

I wasn't sure if I should post this reply in my "brake sensor" post or this one since it would fit in either, but I'll go with this one. It seems that I didn't have two seperate problems... only one, rather.

I was driving home from work today and the "brake" sensor went off... again. Needless to say I was a little upset to put it mildly. I took it Patrick BMW/MINI, told the service agent that I thought I had a brake fluid leak. I told him about the fluid around my right rear rim and sure enough, my caliper is leaking.

Apparently it's a super slow leak, but when I was "hammering" (as Adam, the SA explained) on Sunday when I was autocrossing, it leaked faster, thus the fluid on my wheel.

He filled it up really quick, ordered the part(s), and it will be fixed tomorrow.

Only questions I have left to ponder:

1. Why the hell did this happen in the first place?
2. Why was the fluid around my wheel green when the brake fluid definitely isn't?

I appreciate the amazing service at MINI, and I would still be pretty upset if it wasn't for it, but I'm still pretty bummed about the whole thing. I mean my car only has 3900 miles on it, and well, the reason I went with a new car is so I wouldn't have to encounter problems like this.

Sure, I should be thankful for the warranty and great service and I am, but I still think I have a right to be pretty bummed out about the whole thing. This means that I've never owned a car without a leak .

Damn...

Oh well... it'll be fixed tomorrow and the staining around the wheel will be taken care of. So in the end all I lost was a few hours of my time. Could be worse... right?

 

Hmm, almost new car, brake fluid, green slime, could it possibly be some left over cosmoline (used to keep MINIs free from ocean spray on their voyage across the pond) mixed with the brake fluid?

Methinks ya got a defective part from the factory, as the man says s**t happens. Better to find out the way you did than in a more, shall we say, "exciting" way.

 

It sounds like the anti-rust stuff they put on the minis. I have had some of it on the hatch and its pretty hard to get off.

 

Hey - I was at the auto-x school as well. If you saw the Checkmate MINI tearing around the cones as you would expect it to do, well, that was my wife driving it. If you saw a MINI performing coneage through that last set of slaloms, well than that was me. I don't think I've ever had as much fun driving behind the wheel of a car in my life and I think my wife would say the same.

We are looking for helmets (as I see you are) and trying to see if the TireRack Challenge will fit our schedules in June.

Which MINI were you in? My instructor had me doing some things a little different than my wife's instructor so I'm curious what line you were taking through the first set of slaloms, etc....