ok so let me start with my apologies if this is posted in the wrong place . I'm new to this specific forum.
not new to mini though I have had multiple r53 minis that I loved dearly
I'm a audi / vw tech so complicated diagnostics are not far from my reach that's for sure .

ill try to make this as short as possible .
a buddy of mine has a 2010 mini cooper s clubman r55 I believe .
its had an issue with hard starts in the morning . would usually take 2 or 3 try's to get it to fire up .
he took it to our local barvarian mini dealer . they diagnosed it as a high pressure fuel pump . so they did the high pressure pump also did timing chain and couple other things while it was at there lot .
cold start issue still existed did not get better . he continued to drive it as it had no drivability issues and barbarian told him it was ok .

one morning he came out. car would not fire up . cranks and cranks and cranks . no fire .

so I have been messing with this car trying to figure it out . I love cars that are difficult to diagnose gives me a rush but this one is killing me lol

low pressure fuel pump wasn't kicking on .
I informed him I wanted to take it out and bench test it before we just threw a $ 400 low pressure pump at it .
bench tested the fuel pump . works great
put it back in . still no reaction from the pump .
tested all the wiring at the plug on the pump
only 1 wire was getting power
the rest didn't get anything at all . no ground no power no nothing
so I pulled the pump and figured out which wire was the ground to the actual fuel pump . ( center pin top row ) so I ran my own ground to that wire just as a test to see . sure enough when you try to start the car the fuel pump kicks on ( the pump will only come on with my own ground wire ran to it . ) but the car will not fire up .

on to the next part . I went to pull the fuel filter ( passenger side of the tank ) when I pulled the line there wasn't any fuel pressure usually a hiss and fuel will come out . nothing . so I tried to start the car with that fuel line off of the top of the fuel filter and no fuel comes out but the fuel pump runs and primes and runs the whole time the car is trying to start nothing comes out .

so is there a motor on the filter side of the tank as well ? on the pump side the pump is operating . if I make my own ground but nothing comes out of the fuel filter . I'm lost !!!

I think next I'm going to try and pull the pump again and pull the fuel line connecter that slips on the actual pump itself and runs to the other side of the tank . I think I will pull that and try to prime the pump and see if anything comes out . but you can hear it running and feel it kick on if you hold your hand on the top of the pump assembly so my assumption would be that its working properly . minus the grounding issue .

any ideas ??? ill try anything at this point I wanna get this poor guys mini back on the road .

thanks in advance hopefully someone has had this issue . talked to my friend that works at the barvarian mini he went to and hes clueless .

ive searched all the mini forums I could find and could not find my particular issue so my apologies is this has been covered already

 

Also was originally throwing a code for fuel level sensor a and fuel level sensor b . But that was buried deep into the computers I can't remeber what module I got that out of

 

Bump

 

so the fuel pump is behind the driver side...you were probably working on the sender unit.

can you remove the fuel line going into the HPFP. put it in a cup or something, start the car and see if fuel comes out.

also, extreme measure...a friend of mine has something similar. He ended up emptying the fuel tank and put new fuel. that solved his issue.

 

Update :
So I got a chance to work on it a little today.
Pulled he fuel pump back out to see why I was able to get it to run but no fuel coming out . The hose running to the fuel filter side from the fuel pump side popped off . So now it's pumping fuel ( with my own ground connected . Once I pull the ground it stops running fuel and shuts the car down )
It's also throwing a code for fuel level sensor a . And fuel level sensor b . So it's deff a grounding issue since I'm able to get the car to run if I supply my own ground but still has the codes.

 

i forgot to mention the fuse box by the passenger kick panel. check for water damage. that is usually a problem area.

 

That'd be for power tho correct ? Powers not an issue . It's ground . I could be mistaken tho because I don't know this year this is my first experience with this year range

 

There are 3 or 4 wires coming directly from the DME. The rest is coming from the fuse box. You could work your way backwards from the pump to the fuse box to see if there is physical damage to the wires. But in the three flooded cars i flipped, replacing the fuse box got me the car running for sure. So, at least examine the fuse box for water intrusion.

 

Thank you I'll give that a look !! I should hopefully make it back over there wed to look it over some more

 

any luck?