After Mini had replaced my engine of the fJCW due to misfiring issues, they reduced the intervals to 6200 miles. That would roughly mean 2 services a year. Did anyone else get their service intervals reduced?
What would the technical reason be behind this?

 

With my Justa, the service interval was changed when I went in for one of my regular scheduled services. It had started out in the ~15K mile range (maybe even 18K?) and after I picked up the car from the service the next interval showed 10K miles.

It looks like MINI figured out that their schedule was fairly optimistic...

 

Well....
You already had one motor replaced.....
Think mini looked at warrenty costs and realized oil changes are cheaper than motors...

 

As far as I can tell, the interval is not based on mileage alone. It's either yearly or when the computer tells you it's time. Sometimes it's less than 10k miles, sometimes more. I noticed this on mine, called the dealer and asked what's up? The SA wasn't sure, but he thought it was a combination of mileage and how the Mini has been driven. Anyone else notice this?

 

They call it "Condition-Based Service". In some cars, it takes into account the number of starts, how much fuel has been used, engine temps, and lots of other stuff. If you check carefully, you may notice the number of miles to the next service decreasing faster than you are putting miles on it, or slower. Or maybe even increasing, depending on how you drive...

 

If Mini had done this from the beginning perhaps their reputation would be much improved considering an S engine gets hot and burns some oil that some owners seem oblivious to! They pull in for an oil change and find out their missing 3+ quarts of oil.

 

I do all the oil/filter changes on my cars myself. I love my MINI, but I refuse to let it tell me when it needs an oil/filter change. I run Mobil 1 0w-40, and use BMW oil filters. My plan is every 5000 miles. I use a little window sticker (like the oil-change places do) to remind me. I also check my oil frequently. Maybe overkill, but this MINI needs to last, and I drive it kinda hard!

 

I performed a compression test the other day and understood how the needles movement on the gauge tells you a lot about your combustion chambers. Cylinder 1 and 2 buildup compression a little bit faster than 3 and 4 which means one of two things, you're leaking at the valves and or the rings. Now I understand where all of the oil goes, past the rings.

Now to the point, I received some free products to try out from BG (PetroSpecs Inc.) General Manager Eric who is a great guy and very informative. I have here a bottle of EPR or Engine Performance Restoration (targeting Direct Injection engines) that you pour into your oil right before your oil change. It's said to remove hard carbon deposits that accumulate around and in-between the piston rings, every time you get blowby gas through the rings it can get caught up and leave behind carbon in-between the rings.

Instruction say to bring your engine to normal operating temperature and to bring the rpms up to 1200 and keep it there for 10 minutes, then drain the oil. I'm a little hesitant do to the fact that there's a ton of black burnt oil in the oil feed line to the turbo, what I don't want is for all that caked burnt oil to clog up the turbo. Then again I might be over thinking it. Mmm.

Any comments?

 

You are correct, there are other perimeters which causes it to fluctuate however there is a base where it starts off once the service is done, my base is 6200 miles.

 

Now that you mentioned it I have noticed since they put the new motor in that the cooling fan comes on significantly more than the before.
With regards to oil consumption, in the 6200 miles on the new motor it didnt require a drop of oil.

 

I've used Liqui-moly engine detox on the last two oil changes the last one I thought I'd give it some revs to spool up the turbo to give it a clean out and filled my garage with smoke. I assume the additive thinned out the oil and got pass my rings when I revved it, maybe cleaned them on the way through. Its only been two weeks so can't say much about oil consumption but I've also gone to 5W-40 oil which should definitely help.

If you do use that additive maybe you'll get a crap load of smoke too.

 

What year is your JCW? I reduced the interval to 5000 miles, as I do my own service.

 

What probably happened is while the carbon deposits in and around the rings were being dissolved by Liqui-moly engine detox, you blew all that crap right out. Your turbo can't boost without the car moving, if you ever were somehow able to enter boost pressure during idling you would blow your engine! What brand of 5W-40 are you using? I'm going to do my oil change early for the summer months because I want to use a 5W-40 oil, only two oils are approved by Mini, 0W-40 and 5W-40. I'm running Royal Purple 5W-30 which I feel isn't good enough for how I drive in the summer months, which isn't approved by Mini. I don't think any 5W-30 is approved by Mini except for Mini brand oil.

Well it looks like the new engines actually have closer tolerances then the engines that came with the Mini's from the factory! Before I was forced to replace my thermostat housing my fan never came on, after it was replaced the fan started coming on a lot more often. I welcome my fan to come on more often especially at red lights and after shutdown. I can only imagine the few months where it should have come on but didn't, wonder what that could have done to my engine! One of the sensors in my thermostat housing was bad all that time, idling at a long red light where it should have come on but didn't.

 

I use Penrite 5W-40 full synthetic oil after having a good experience changing over to their full synthetic ATF. I'm not sure if Penrite is available in the States.

 

Pennzoil has a 5W40 that meets the MINI A3/B3 requirement. I believe it also carries the LL01 cert. It replaced whatever MINI originally called for in the manual.

 

Have you bothered to perform a compression test on your engines cylinders?

 

No why?

 

Probably the best way to determine the health of the mechanical parts (rings, valves) of the engine..

 

I measure that in fuel economy and wheel spin

Just not at the same time

 

Really?

There should be no confusion why someone would perform a compression test, unless they were scared at what they might find then I might understand.

Whenever I buy a car I always perform a compression test once every 10k or every year, it provides valuable information about the condition of the sealing qualities of your engines cylinders over time.

 

In the last service, they used 0w-40 oil.

 

I performed and retest compression on all cylinders, results were drastically different this time. First time I did it when engine was cold and when I did it again yesterday I asked my brother if his foot was on the gas pedal, sure it wasn't, idiot! Engine had just been turned off before test. Compression built up quickly in all cylinders, after 5 compression strokes each cylinder reached their target measurements below. Is 0W-40 good enough for a warm climate?

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