List the dealers that are close to you, I'm sure people on this forum will have recommendations about who has the best service department.

This forum can be better than Angie's list, when looking for a good dealer.

Dave

 

coil packs

 

thanx ricbow but why would you say its coil packs? what makes you think this?

 

just went through the same thing

 

same thing? please let me know what exactly did you go through? did you have issues with the ***, no overboost, check engine icon appearing? and all this not to happen constantly but being in an on&off situation? pls let me know in detail to determine if its the same thing!

 

The description of the handling of the service made it sound like a genaric used car dealer.

If a mini dealer is working like this.....
be very leary of swapping parts that others have swapped out to fix a similar problem...
The coil packs for example will usually give a specfic code (gotten woth the code reader), that indicates whick of the 4 packs it is....
You need the code the car is storing when the issur happens, and light goes on.
WITHOUT THAT CODE, YOU ARE ONLY GETTING SPECULATION, AND ONE IN A MILLION GUESSES....WILD A$$'ED GUESSES....
sorry for the caps, just trying to make a point....
As suggested previously, list you location
And a person might be able to point you towards a shop or better dealer.....
Fixing issues is likeing being a bit of a detective, but to make a guess like "the butler did it with a candlestick! " when you don't have a butler, but a housekeeper is a waste of enery, and counter productive.
As mentioned previously, MANY THINGS can cause limp mode...carbon build up, bad sensors, etc...a good mechanic looks at the codes, and eliminates the possibilites....and finely finds a issue. Having defered mantance or other issues can complicate the search.

 

Thanx ZippyNH for the point, i dont trust anyone especially after this, and usually i try to take care of my issues by my self. So what can i do at first at least to see those codes you are talking about? Are there issues that dont create codes, or do all issues create some code?

 

Read your own thread. it is explained in earlier posts about code readers (ODBII readers).

If you do not know the answer to this question then YOU should NOT be working on your own car. Let the professionals do it.

No on to a few other things.

Where do you live? It sounds as if you may not live in the USA or Canada?
The reason I say this is although some dealers are worse than others, I have not heard any as bad as you describe in the USA or Canada. Other countries yes but not the USA or Canada.

Also how do you figure it is not easy to find a REAL MINI Dealer. If the big sign on the building or on top of the pole says MINI and is an AUTHORIZED MINI Dealership then they are a real dealer. Authorized Dealers can be found thru the MINI.com website if you are not sure what we are talking about.

 

The dealer im referring to is one of the biggest in my country and is surely authorized but maybe the guy that took this under control did a mistake and didn't pass the car through a scan, but decided to change the spark plugs based on experience, but why are we stuck on this issue?.
But let me ask:
1. if there was a problem with the spark plugs would this have shown in the scan?
2. regarding the code readers can i do a scan using a smart phone?
3. are there issues that cannot be monitored? for eg. coil packs?
4. when you said about a REAL mini dealer i thought that you exaggerated with the word real and meant find a "good" mini dealer, well of course there are many REAL dealers as you point out!

 

If that is what the Tech did you need to make sure his boss knows that he did not do his job properly. And from you explanation of the problem spark plugs would be one of the last things to be checked for as a solution. The ONLY way for a Tech to know what is turning on the "Check Engine Light" is to hook up the car to some kind of diagnostic equipment. There are thousands of things that can cause a "Check Engine Light" to come on.


Not specifically. There is no code that state "plugs are bad"

Athough you can you STILL NEED TO PURCHASE EQUIPMENT and in most cases it will not give you all the info that a proper ODBII code reader will give you.

[QUOTE=genik;3456178]3. are there issues that cannot be monitored? for eg. coil packs?{/QUOTE]Read thru the codes listed here http://www.obd-codes.com/trouble_codes/bmw/ That is a short list of codes that can be displayed and the car can also display codes that BMW//MINI have not listed in their code listing.

So GO OUT AND BUY a ODBII Code Reader. This is the ONLY way you are going to be able to tell what is going on.

Here in the US there are many dealers that sell used MINI's but they are NOT Authorized Dealers. And in fact in the USA BMW Dealers are not Authorized to work on MINI's unless they have a MINI Sales department.

YOU REALLY NEED TO READ AND SEARCH MORE ABOUT YOUR PROBLEMS BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS HERE. 99% OF WHAT YOU ARE ASKING HAS ALREADY BEEN ANSWERED OR IS VERY GENERAL INFORMATION THAT YOU CAN FIND ABOUT ANY CAR ON GOOGLE.

 

A friend indicated from his experience that this is very possible to be a sensor issue!