Hello and Thanks in advance!

I have a 2009 Mini S (I think called R56!) with ~110k miles, completely stock. One day I was driving and it completely died on me. I tried to start it, but with no luck! The engine would turn (starter is good!) but no firing. The cluster is showing a service engine message.

Long story short…. I towed it to the dealer, and they said the timing chain had snapped and it would cost an arm and a leg to fix. So I towed it back home!

Started trouble shooting the car and right off the bat I saw that the dealer had taken the valve cover off and placed it by the passenger seat ….which was upsetting to see!

Things I have done so far;
1) While the valve cover off, I turned the crank and the chain seems to be completely fine and intact. No signs of slop or damage.
2) There is a small plastic guide or cover that is bolted onto the head covering the top portion of the chain seems to be broken. Not sure how it was broken! So I removed it. It sits between the two cam gears.
3) Pulled the connectors off the ecu and put it back on and still no crank.
4) Spark plugs seem good.
5) I got a bottle of “starting fluid” and sprayed some in the intake tube after the turbo and still no start. I was thinking that the fuel pump may be at fault.

The car has an automatic transmission, and when I key ON, the trans shifts thru gears normally. No issues there!

I am not sure what to look for next, any suggestions or help is highly appreciated!
Thanks

 

The top guide is known the get brittle and break causing what they call death rattle. If a piece falls down inside the timing assembly can cause damage.
so first off you will be looking at least doing a timing job.
Second I know you stated that in the beginning the motor would crank but not fire. And then seen the crank quote in there.so is the car still cranking or has it locked up.

I had a no crank issue on my r53 turned out to be a locked up supercharger. You can look at my threads for that but if you have spun the motor and it spins freely I doubt you have a lock up issue.

All in all. The motor takes fuel, air, fire, combustion to run as long as it is in time correctly. So if your not getting one of those then you won't have a running engine. You tried starter fluid with no luck. Double check that by turning the key on and listening for the fuel pump to prime under the back seat. There is alsoalspressure valve on the end of the fuel rail you can check pressure on. If you all good there I would to spark.

Make sure your coil is firing.any auto part store should carry a spark tester. Just plug your coil wire into it and it the light comes on then your good there.next would be compression.

You can pick up a compression tester fairly cheap. Pull your plugs out install the tester and verify all cylinders are within limits and there is no drastic change between them.

Bare with grammar as all this typing is from my cell phone. Just make sure you have all the basics for an engine to run. I would check on the timing first and foremost however. Make sure you don't jump time and damage valves. Good luck and keep us informed

 

Thanks alot for the info!

The engine spins whether by hand or starter freely....so it doesn't seem to be locked at all.
I do have a comp tester so I will check for that next and will also check the fuel rail.....these are two great suggestions.

I was also suspecting that some broken pieces off that guide may had fallen into the bottom where the crank pulley is and caused some issues, but it looked very involved to open up. Any tricks to pulling that crank case off?

Thx again!

 

On a side note, i am already considering the a timing chain job and I see multiple kit options, one from Promini and another off ebay.....has anyone had experience with the ebay kit? seems to be quite cheaper...... cheaper is not always good, so looking for any takes on this.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Mini-Cooper-R55-R56-R57-R58-R59-R60-Timing-Chain-Kit-07-12-/161377424059?hash=item2592d812bb&vxp=mtr
http://www.promini.com/product-exec/...arch_model/100

 

Thought I should share a small update...Did a compression test and it couldn't build any compression....that led me to thinking that timing must be off!

Purchased the timing cam locking tool.....after locking the flywheel and checking the cam locations, it seemed the cams were off by one tooth on both intake and exhaust. So I removed the tenssioner bolt, loosen up the sprocket bolts, and adjusted the cams with a crescent wrench to align them to TDC (obliviously after removing the locking too but while maintaining the flywheel locked).

Placed the tenssioner bolt back on, removed the flywheel locking pin then rotated the assembly as a test to note if that would place the assembly back the correct way.....then it lost timing by a tooth again after rotating the crank.

This was a quick test so I will revisiting the procedure again, but something seemed strange that when I aligned everything to TDC and before releasing the flywheel bolt, I place a long thin rod into the cylinders to note where the pistons, and they were all at the same heights..... is that even possible? I was expecting 2 to be at TDC then the other two 180* off..... can someone confirm pls?
Thanks in advance!

 

bump.... any takes on the pistons travel.

 

update: I ended up gauging the travel of the pistons by using a long rod in cylinders 2 & 3 and was able to align the crank and the cams at TDC. I placed chain back on the cam sprockets, tensioner...etc and tried to turn the motor by a ratchet from the crank and felt some resistance. Came to find out that there were some plastic debree that had fallen into where the crank sprocket is. So I need to remove the crank sprocket and clean it up. Have a couple of questions on this;
1) Would you unbolt the crank bolt by placing the locking pin into the flywheel/housing? and use the same method to tighten it back up?
2) how would u approach removing the crank sprocket? if I remove the accessory belt if its in the way, then remove the bolt, would I be able to remove/clean up the area? in other words, is there access to that area once the bolt and sprocket is removed?

Thanks alot!

 

Unfortunately no time to dive into this project, so if anyone is interested....

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4127230

 

Your description of your initial problem sounds like your car had the "death rattle" which led to the lawsuit in New Jersey. I have a 2009 S with 46k miles on it. I hear just a bit of noise from the area where the death rattle occurs (that broken piece of plastic you describe is the source). The fix for the initial problem, before plastic pieces start flying about, is to get a timing chain kit (chain, bottom sprocket, 3 plastic guides, tensioner, and some kits also come with crankshaft bolts and the crankshaft seal. Then read up on how to replace that whole assembly.

However, you seem to now have a worse problem, which could have been caused by plastic rubble falling down into moving engine parts. If you're lucky, all you have is a piece of plastic jammed into the bottom chain sprocket. That could cause the chain to jump teeth on the sprocket. But far worse things can happen once you drive with that plastic swimming around in the engine oil.

My suggestion: Drain the oil, take off the oil pan, get a flashlight and look up at the engine from below for pieces of jammed plastic. Hope there are none in the crankshaft bearings. Also inspect the drained oil very closely for pieces of plastic...and metal. Hope for no little bits of metal. If none, plan on doing the timing chain replacement. But I don't know how or whether you can get the timing back after the adjusting you have tried to do. Other threads tell me it's impossible, but you might be fine.

And of course you have to replace the oil filter and oil. Inspect the filter for bits of stuff that isn't oil. Also a good time to replace the serpentine belt, check the belt tensioner and maybe replace that, too.

Maybe someone else has a better set of recommendations, but judging by my reading, your problem was the classic "death rattle" problem. The settlement of the lawsuit in Jersey basically screwed a lot of us -- anyone who was not aware of the case -- and now it's too late to get in on that settlement. So I'm going ahead with the timing chain, and at the same time, replacing the serpentine belt and a couple other things. Had to inspect my struts, too, so this is a good time to start checking them.

 

the initial post was from last year! the problem he has was not just the timing. once you skip teeth, the valves are hit and you have to do a head job. I worked on at least 5 engines so far and the last one i did, the valves seemed ok. with a compression of 30 psi, i just went ahead and put new valves. The engine had a worst issue, seized vacuum pump but, i got the car up and running (i did the work for a NAM member)

 

Thanks for the post. I suspected that the worst case might be the case, but I was trying to be optimistic. I'm about to do my timing chain (the Mini "death rattle" issue). And while I'm greasy, replacing the rubber gaskets around the oil filter housing and oil cooler housing. Also, on a different matter, trying to figure out why my Mini has clunking noises going over bumps. Maybe the struts, maybe something else worn. I'll look at that while the right front wheel is off.

 

my car does the same clunkings. it has 40k on it! i found the front shock bolt loose. but that did not fix the noises.

 

Thank you! I've read a number of posts on this subject, offering ideas on what it might be. Worn parts other than the struts are common suggestions. Difficult to diagnose, because some clunks can't be duplicated when you jack the car up and try to bounce or shake the suspension. If you find something else, I hope you post.

 

2012, R56, Auto, Cooper S, 115k

I've experienced what seems like HPFP symptoms for a few years! Cold start it will idle low for 30 seconds and stall if you try to drive. So we just always let it idle in the AM before we leave. My mechanic couldn't figure it out (mini trained) and he said most likely failing HPFP. Unfortunately our year model missed out on the recall. Now I have a new issue:

New issue: Mainly felt on highway but can feel anywhere I can get up to speed. If I get 30+ Mph then take my foot off the gas for a second, then go to push back down on the gas, the car will hesitate/buck mildly. Just for a moment this happens. I'm trying to figure out if this too is the HPFP or a different issue. I have cleaned the MAFS as someone suggested that, but it didn't fix it.

Also to note: No check light or fault codes that i know of

 

at this mileage, it could be in need of carbon cleanup and/or vanos solenoid cleaning.

 

I know this is an old thread but I have spent alot of time online trying to sort out problems with my 2010 Countryman Cooper S all4 and thought I would put problems and solutions here in case anyone else has issues. This thread and others on here have been invaluable.

Issues - intermittent low pressure in the high pressure fuel system warnings, intermittent cylinder misfire warnings, sluggish starting - especially when the car had been sitting for a few days. I also got intermittent drop outs in power when driving - almost like the car was missing a beat as it were.

Things I tried:

1. changed the HPFP over to a used one which had come off a good car. This made the problems worse so I made (what turned out to be an incorrect) assumption that the HPFP I had was OK.
2. New common rail sensor - made no change
3. checked low pressure fuel pump - this was running at 5bar when driving so was OK.
4. replaced the ignition packs - didn't really do much
5. replaced the common rail and injectors with one from a car which had a blown head gasket. This did make a difference and looking at the old ones of cylinders 1&2 (which had been giving the intermittent misfires) the tips were totally clean of carbon. I think they had been essentially not holding fuel back and this was (part of) the reason I was getting the HPFP low pressure error. This did improve things - got rid of the sluggish starting problem and I thought I had got it fixed.

Then a month or so later the cold start rough idle issues restarted and the intermittent power stumbles came back again. The only part of the fuel system that I thought could be wrong was the HPFP despite swapping it out briefly for one which I thought was good. After a fair amount of digging I found a guy on eBay advertising HPFP rebuilds (I am in the UK) so I took the plunge, paid £160 or so and sent him the pump. It came back yesterday and I fitted it to the car. BINGO. All errors gone. Starts a treat. It was 4 degrees C this morning and the car started fine. No hesitation or stumbling on driving and good throttle response.

Car details - 2010 All4 Cooper S Just under 100k miles.

eBay person - https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/275344175620

Hope this may be of use to anyone out there.

 

thanks for posting! I've faced HPFP issues as well...it was a mystery like yours. On this side of the Atlantic, there's a fellow in Canada that rebuilds them - he has a good reputation. He's active on FB.

 

I wish the HPFP was my issue, I swapped it and ran perfect for a month, tried another one and no-go, swapped fuel filter and LPFP, still in a crank no start condition :(

Had codes P0087 and P10EE (no idea what that is)

going to the dealer today for a diagnosis (tow)