Hi all,

A few weeks ago, we took possession of a 2010 Justa Clubman 6-speed from some friends of my cousin. It's my cousin's car, and we're holding it onto it for their daughter for next year (great parents, huh?)

The car has 84,000 miles on it, and we put about 2-300 miles on it between taking delivery, running errands, and my wife took it to work for a few days. During that time, being the car guy that I am, I began to take stock of whatever the car's needs were. First of which, was a leaking valve cover gasket. The gasket was leaking oil out the sides, but also into the #1 cylinder plug well. Amazingly, the car ran fine, and there was a little but not much oil contamination on the coil.

So, during our weekly get-together, my car buddies and I descended upon the Mini, determined to change out the valve cover gasket. I'll preface by saying we know our way around various Euro cars (BMW and VW/Audi mostly) so it wasn't outside of our wheelhouse to change out a valve cover gasket.

Armed with a new Ajusa valve cover gasket and NGK spark plugs, we got the gasket and plugs changed out. I elected not to change out the coils as the car was running fine before. When I started it up the next morning, it was idling a bit rough, but ran fine off idle, so I didn't think much of it at the time. All was well until about 20 miles into my drive to work, the car started misfiring and stalled on me. I got it towed back home to figure out what went wrong.

The codes I got were P0300 Random Misfire and P0303 Cylinder #3 misfire. FYI - The coil I had noted before that was lightly contaminated was the #1 cylinder.

Meanwhile, my parts guy at FCP realized they had some bad fitment data from a vendor on the plugs I ordered, and that the NGK's were not the right ones (despite being the right size/thread). So, armed with the right plugs (Beru 12ZR6SP03) I fired it up, and it was still misfiring. It took a while for the code to come up, but eventually it threw a P0300 Random Misfire code. I unplugged the MAF sensor, and everything smoothed out. Cleared codes, and obviously the CEL pops up for a missing MAF, but otherwise, it runs a lot better.

Regardless, on the off chance thinking it may be the contaminated coils, or a MAF - I got both a new MAF and new set of coils to try out (both Bosch). I finally got those in last night, and it is still the same - misfires, P0300 code, and when you unplug the MAF it runs smooth. We noticed short term fuel trims were maxed at +25%. Plugs had some soot and smelled like gas, like it was running rich. Unplugging the MAF makes those go back closer to zero.

Compared some at-rest values for the new MAF and old MAF and they're equal - about 0.1 lb/min at rest.

With the STFT's maxed out, we decided to do a battery reset. Once we got everything back together, fired it up and it misfires and then dies. STFT's are zero because I can't keep it running long enough to get enough fuel in there to keep it running.

What is going on here? Despite our experience, we don't have a lot of wrench time on these Mini engines, but I didn't think they'd be this sensitive to a valve cover gasket change. Is this how the engine reacts to a big vacuum leak?

Last night we looked at the items we removed to replace the valve cover gasket. The intake boot didn't have any splits in it. The PCV hose looks okay, but we only disconnected it from the valve cover, not the bowels of the motor. I didn't notice any cracks in the valve cover itself. I hate to be throwing parts at it, but I'm reaching the point where we need to get it back on the road.

We're stumped, which is why I finally signed up and came over to b*tch to you guys. Any ideas?

Here's the sick Clubbie:

 

I posted on your new member post and left a couple comments.

 

A P 0300 and P 0303, 0302,0301 and 0304 can usually mean the cam position sensor and or crank position sensor failure. The vanos relays for cam positioning can go bad also. Usually the cam position sensors and the crank position sensor are suspect.
Because it is gen 2, it has two cam position sensors. They are inexpensive and may only need the plugs to sensors cleaned with electrical cleaner. Try this first!

 

FINALLY! I think we're getting somewhere.

I pulled the valve cover off, and straight away it was apparent what was causing the running issues:



Yep, that was the BRAND NEW gasket that we installed. I know that before it was installed (not by me) it was one piece, and the surface it seals on is curved w/ no sharp edges. So, not exactly sure where the install error occurred, if it was an install, or why it just split like that (manufacturer defect?).

And I don't mean to throw my friends under the bus - they're both more experienced working on cars than I - but I'm just not sure how this could have happened. I'm not mad at them either, they were equally confused as well. No harm no foul, I've got a Genuine Mini gasket on the way at no charge, and I'll probably return the coils and MAF we used to diagnose to this issue, since those old parts are probably fine. Will double check before sending them on their way though. FCP Euro's return policy is top notch.

I probably could have saved some heartache by just tearing into the gasket (no pun intended) straight away, but I had other priorities (the guys did me a favor by doing the install while I was cleaning/organizing the garage prior to putting my house on the market to take care of in the preceding weeks, but now I'm just glad that I was able to find a smoking gun.

Funny enough, in the 20 miles I drove the car, there wasn't any substantial oil leak that occurred where the tear was. Odd, I thought.