The intake duct for the R56 MCS sits low on the driver side of the front grille. Found that out today when I had an Alta CAI installed. The duct runs from the front grille to the air filter box located at the back of the engine bay. It does sit low and I would not have known if my Tuner had not pointed it out to me.

Wow. This is definitely something to keep in mind.

 

Hi lawguy - Any further update? Good luck from all of us in the meantime!

PS. Maybe it is my years running with the miata crowd and playing around with various other cars (e.g., vw's) but i have to say i am amazed at how several posters consider the inlet snorkel behind the upper grill and beside the headlight to be "low"! Have you seen the design of many aftermarket CAI intakes, such as are in VW's and audis? These situate the inlet, if not the filter itself, as little as 6 inches above the road surface and behind an open grill! The air intake design on our minis is nowhere nearly as prone to water ingestion. Just saying... it is all relative.

 

I'm real sorry to hear about your engine and roadside assistance problems. I hope the damage turns out to be repairable.

It was good of you to post your water 'n' MINI warning. My previous car (a lowly Corolla) was apparently a bit more forgiving of trips through large puddles. I've been much more careful with my MINI thanks to another MINI owner who shared her puddle experience here on NAM (it was much like yours, unfortunately) -- and the informative responses posted by other NAMers, of course!

 

How about if it is parked in your garage? Or in the driveway? Depends on the insurance company.........:impatient

 

irrelevant to the OP.

 

Still an auto claim, not a homeowners claim. Even if it's parked in your kitchen.

 

**well...i'm an idiot**
--E

 

ps...i owned an audi a4 before my mini, and have worked on various VW's as well....the intake system is located at about mid thigh height(im 6ft.) and anyway, one big mod for us A4 guys was to essentially gut the intake system and cut open a huge hole in the wheel well and cover it with some screen to prevent **** from flying up in there. This allowed a constant and almost direct flow of air through an air filter and into the engine... No one EVER had any hydro lock issue, regardless of weather conditions. anyway

--E

 

There is no way to get anything into an IC. They are a closed system.

 

I was gonna say the same thing.

 

I haven't read all the posts, but just to say the exact same happened to me with my R50. The engine had to be replaced. Luckily the insurance covered it (after a bit of discussion...)

Needless to say, I avoid water like the plague in my R56.

 

But someone else asked............

 

you were the first person to mention homeowners

ayway, I think we are agreeing so no biggy.

 

i digress/retract 1st statement

--E

 

I have read a few stories about MINIs suffering engine damage after being driven through puddles, but in my searches for all things MINI I have come across a number of pics showing a MINI blasting through a puddle ...what gives ...are these cars somehow modified to repel water or what...I think I'm confused

 

Depends on how it is driven and how deep. If the car is allowed to create a "bow" wave and it gets high enough to cover the grill it gets ingested. And bye-bye engine.

 

I wish that I had an update, but I don't yet.

Here in NY, an insurance company has six working days days to get their act together and act on this claim. Monday is the sixth day. They have not looked at it yet.

I have spoken with a lot of people. Most think that the engine can be repaired by drying everything out. But, many people think that I would be better off just getting a new engine because if I have problems down the line, BMW will always blame it on this. BMW is telling me horror stories like this about bent rods and other things that only become apparent after time.

 

Some good news!

I get my Mini back today.

It seems that my engine was not hydrolocked after all.

The dealership really didn't do anything until the car had been looked at by my insurance company. That happened on Tuesday. The insurance company was great and basically told the dealership to do what it had to do and if that meant that the engine had to be replaced, then I would get a brand new one. At that time, it seemed certain that a new engine would be required and I had mixed emotions about that.

Well, the dealership then began to really look at the car and discovered (as I suspected) that the starter burned out. It took a few days to get a new starter in. After it was installed, the engine apparently started right up and has passed all tests, including a compression test. The dealership has advised that no new engine is necessary and that, in an excess of caution, they are replacing some sensors and changing the oil.

I was a little bit concerned that if something happens to the engine down the road, I will get a lot of fingerpointing between the dealer and my insurance company, but the dealer tells me that they are convinced that water never affected the engine at all and I still have a complete warranty. I hope this is true because I was told that the air filter was wet. So, all in all, a good outcome.

 

I'm glad the engine wasn't damaged! You'll be back on the road motoring in no time!

 

Great news.

 

I told you the air intake is right next to the headlight and it is impossible to hydrolock the engine from driving through a few inches of water like you did. What are other people seeing as the air inlet pipe behind the grille? I don't get it.

 

A friend of mine had same thing happen to his pickup truck. His car insurance paid for the new engine though. I don't know if this is too late, but it would not hurt to ask...


update..
OOPPPsss. I missed the important one with the engine not actually being bad...

 

How did your friend collect? As comp, or at-fault "collision?"

 

I did not get into that great detail with him. All he had told me that his insurance was covering it. Just happened we worked together, and lived down the same road in GA, both had dodge dakota pickups, and both had to go through the same water to get home.

I made it, he did not...

 

I live in Phoenix, AZ and we just had a big storm last night. I work at a local hospital, and there was a lot of standing water in the parking lot. None of it was over the curb, as I could see the top of the curb.

I stopped and then SLOWLY drove through the water (5-10mph), thinking "hey, don't stall". Well, after about 30 feet the car stalled and would not re-start. All the lights on my instrument panel were on, but when I keyed the starter it just clicked.

So I get out and push the car to a dry parking spot, wait and hour and then try and start the car. Nada...but all the lights work. So I call roadside assistance and 2 hours later a flatbed shows up. The driver and I push the car about 20 feet to line it up with the back of the tow-truck. He hooks up the cable, tips the bed back and proceeds to winch my Mini up onto the flatbed.

About 10 feet up the back of the truck, oil begins to POUR from the bottom of my car. The driver and I are dumbfounded, as there is no oil in the parking spot, or in the area where we pushed the car.

We get to Mini of North Scottsdale, I tell the guy what happened, and he said "Oh, I'm pretty sure you hydrolocked your engine. We saw a few of these last week durring another big storm".

He said that the water under the hood got sucked through the intake and into the engine, where it proceeded to blow out the back of the engine, thus causing the oil leak when the car was at an angle.

He said it is not covered under warranty and that I should have a good insurance company, as it is going to cost $8000-$10000 for a new engine!

The car is a year old with 20,000 miles. I have driven through a lot of water in Florida and Missouri and have never had this happen. In fact the rental they gave me was a Mazda 6 and I went back and drove it through that same water 4 times with no problem.

Sorry this is so long, but I am pissed that Mini had the nerve to tell me it's not covered. It obviously sounds like it has been a know problem for a while, yet nothing is said to the owner, nor is anything done to fix it, like moving the air intake to a safer (drier) spot.

Shouldn't the air filter just get clogged causing the car to stall out? I mean, the water droplets are bigger than air, so they should just block the flow of air to the engine once they hit the filter? There were no loud noises, no bangs, nothing that sounded like a rod going through the engine. I just figured that something got wet and shorted out a relay or something.

Alright, enough said.