I was told by the dealer that ALL S MINIs burn oil.

It's just too soon for the 2011s. Wait until about 28K.

 

Well considering this is a N18 engined MINI no one can say with any certainty. I also dont plan and having the MINI that long either. Nothing against MINI but I will be back in a GTI.

 

Hmm...

 

Signed up today just to spew a bunch of nonsense in this thread?

 

While looking at some posts in various forums one might conclude that all 2nd Gen MINI's have this issue, but that is NOT the case...Many of my friends with 07's and 09's have high mileage and no issues whatsoever.

Bottom line is some do, some don't. IMO those who don't check and top off fluids (except their gas tanks) are looking for problems anyways. And I would bet ya 90% of these owners who's MINI's had a timing chain issues never read their OM or lifted a hood of their previous cars either.

They should be aware that going from one car with a normally aspirated engine to one powered by a hi-po turbo engine has it's responibilities and drawbacks.

As far as the burning oil thing goes.......From the day I drove my 92' Montanna Green 16V VW GTi off the showroom floor it burned...no it DRANK from the oil pan like it was made in Saudi Arabia !

And the damn VW Regional manager hanged his hat on the industry standard of "1qt per 1000 miles...." which I concur is total BS for most any car.

I get a sense there are a few factors involved with these engines though. This engine was probably designed with way too much play with respect to the piston's rings, then there's the inability to immediatly build up enough oil pressure at cold start up ( which is compounded by the lack of oil in the crank case due to neglect) and then theres the original T-chain tensil strength.

If you are under warranty and get this issue, INSIST that all the some eleven TC parts are replaced....otherwise some day down the road probably after the warranty has expired, you will be back and then the cost will be on you.

 

 

I can tell you that since I installed my boost port tap block, and then routed to an OCC I have been burning much more oil. But my tubes are clean? So it's not blowing by.

 

YES, that was exactly my purpose...

No actually I was a member of this forum when I first got my MINI, and after a while of listening to the babbling and constant one-up-mans-(boy)-ship I left the boards.

I just had my second timing chain replacement under warranty and wanted to see how bad the issue really is as I am 2K away from the term of the B2B.

I noticed this thread and those are the exact same symptoms my MINI exhibited each time the timing tensioner and timing chain started to fail.

The issue I took was it's nothing to brush off, yet many of the "established" members here are giving the advice that suggests this is not a serious issue.

When you take on the role of an "expert" you should be subjective. IF your car was exhibiting that behavior what would you do?

 

Maybe this quote from me needs saying again, the car in question is a 2011 and therefore covered by it's manufacturers warranty, and in this and every case covered by the manufacturers warranty, WHY WORRY it's not a serious problem until your outside of the manufacturers warranty, so regardless of this or any problematic issue, just get in your car drive it, the way it should be, and bloody well enjoy it.

If the engine destroys itself, so what, that's what you've got a warranty for! As long as you do your bit, check your oil level regularly, then job done.

 

That's interesting seeing how you came in this thread, diagnosed his problem and offered up a solution just by viewing his clip. I especially liked the advice to keep the RPM's under 2k, because everyone knows, if a timing chain fails, piston to valve contact only happens above 2k RPMs.

Seriously though, I'm sure you have good intentions but your execution could use a little work. There is no need to instill panic when it's not called for.

 

High post count does not denote more authoritative posts.

Take every piece of advice on this forum subjectively.

Warranty or not, one does not need to be a mechanic to realize that when a car is behaving erratically, the problem should be addressed right away rather than waiting for something to go wrong.

 

Ignore this post...

 

What he said.

MINI is not dealing with the timing tensioner/timing chain issue because owners are not forcing them to fix the issue when it FIRST crops up.

We wait, and problems incur more problems. Soon we are out of warranty with an engine that is more like a ticking time bomb.

If I had not pushed the issue the first time it came up a year ago, nothing would have been done. The dealership would have chalked it up to "low fluids" or "poor gas quality". But I persisted, and they replaced the timing tensioner, and timing chain. Same issue a year later, and now a TSB to support my claim.

Reading deeper beyond 50K, the N14 Prince engine is a ticking time bomb. At some point you will need to execute the TSB updates yourself for a total of ~2K or wait it out and when the engine or some other critical system bites it you are stuck with a very large paperweight.

I fully intended on keeping my MINI for LIFE. Yes... I'm that short sighted. Now I'm faced with a perpetual buy/trade cycle, or risking a 9K+ engine replacement because of POOR ENGINE DESIGN.

You better believe I am pissed off. Where does that leave me as a consumer and an enthusiast?

 

First I laughed at this
Then guffawed at this!
JKxZ and some others on here seem to be the only people who have a clue that short term problems can grow into bigger ones showing up WELL outside of your warrant. The standard warranty here is 50k and when things start acting up you get them fixed if you ever plan on being in decent shape after that. I'm not a mini expert. But I know there are SO MANY little problems that can eventually end up in a really unreliable engine down the road. Why would you even chance it? (And to the pretentious "pfft-I'll-just-get-another-car-when-the-warranty-ends" people, if for nothing else than a high resell value.)

p.s. the dealers aren't gods and they tend to miss a lot of stuff without knowing exactly symptoms and history.

 

Well, what can go wrong? It is an Italian car, built by Chrysler in Mexico...

 

For the all haters on this thread: My 2011 R56 was doing something similar this morning: Would start, stumble and idle rough. Mine was throwing some black smoke from the exhaust as well. I drove it to the dealer and noticed will driving the Eco HD on my Garmin showed coolant temp at 419F

I knew this couldn't be correct as the car had only been running like 3-4 minutes.

Anyways, the dealer said they are going to replace the thermostat.

So to answer everyone's question: No. No your car shouldn't hesitate and stumble when you start it up. None of my Toyota's have done it.

The simple fact is that these cars have quality issues and if you're lucky, you'll find all of them during the warranty period.

 

This is what will ALWAYS happen when auto parts are built by those who provided the lowest bid....MINI did not make the thermostat, so no point in getting pissed at them.

It's my hopes they learn from these mistakes and move on. Remember, while it may be owned by BMW, MINI as we know it has not been around as long as any one of the big three, and would seem they just need to take a few lumps as the others did before smartening up.

 

Most of the car comes from outside suppliers, so I guess by that argument MINI hardly needs to take any responsibility for anything.

 

My '11 R56 does that sort of idle in the mornings from cold nights (40F or below) too and i just hit 15k miles today in addition to a couple days so i think you're good.