Hey everyone,

New owner to my first used MINI. I know my engine (N18 built 09-11) has issues with the HPFP, and as I chase down gremlins on this in my first few weeks of ownership, I noticed the HPFP coating is coming off, and I wonder if the more experienced owners here could tell me if that usually means that it's a cheap replacement part or that OE "always does that."

Any help would be great, thank you.

 

It's when your engine was built that counts, the cut over from the high failure Continental pump to the new Bosch pump was March 2012. See realoem.com

Looks like you have plenty of corrosion under the hood so I wouldn't make any guesses based on the finish.

 

Yeah, you have the Continental HPFP. Be careful if you go to replace it. The N14 Continental HPFP looks almost exactly the same , but is different and will not work on an N18.
I don’t know what is causing that finish to peel off but like squawSkiBum above noted, there appears to be a significant amount of corrosion going in around the pump as well. Did it have a coolant leak or something around there? It may be a good idea to try to figure out why it’s like that under the hood.???
good luck and keep us posted

 

Hey Mr. Grumpy - can you tell that it's the original Continental pump? I am a new owner, have no service records and can't tell if it's been replaced or not.

I'm not sure about the corrosion. Honestly doesn't look very different to me than my other cars over the last 40 years here in NE, but maybe I'm wrong. I've had no coolant loss in the last 3 to 4 weeks. The engine looks comparatively clean to other vehicles I've worked on with aluminum heads. Thanks for the heads up.

 

I didn't realize where you are, could be from road salt maybe
I cant say for sure just by looking, but it is the same pump as I have. Unless the PO went and replaced it with a cheap knock-off, I would imagine that its the original, or at least a factory replacement, especially since they have the extended warranty on them. I really wouldn't worry too much about the peeling finish on it. If its not leaking or causing any problems on cold starts like they tend to do, its probably just fine. even though they have earned a reputation for failing, its not as bad as it may seem. My countryman had the original Continental fuel pump on it until it hit 129k miles, before it needed replaced, and MINI honored the extension and didn't charge me a dime even though I was past the mileage cut-off.
The only real way to know, is to look up the part number that printed on it. Unless you see a Continental logo on it somewhere..... but I haven't noticed one on mine....but I haven't looked for one either.
Good luck, and feel free to hit me up anytime with a pm or whatever if I can help.

 

You have corrosion there on the mount as well...a lot!

Do you live in a region that puts "salt" on the road? That is likely the culprit. Otherwise, I would say you (or likely the previous owner) are using (or used) a "corrosive lye-based cleaner" to clean your engine bay.

 

Thank you Mr. Grumpy, I appreciate it. I tried my luck with the local Stealership about honoring the warranty on the pump but they wouldn't even consider it (I'm at 124K miles). Instead they offered to change the coils for $400 plus labor - an offer I politely declined and ordered coils from Amazon for $90. Still has a little morning stumble, I'm looking for another shop before I start to just hang parts on it. It's an adventure. Thanks again!

 

I'm in New England, near the ocean. It's awful if you happen to own a car.

 

Never seen one that bad, most i have seen just have light oxidation. Even on my stock 2007 looked just a little dirty. My guess is that its the high salt in the air most of the time.

 

It’s not worth throwing parts at it without knowing for sure what is going on. As for a little stumble in the morning.... could be a lot of things.... mine will do that when the plugs need replaced, but it could have several causes.
Mini won’t replace the pump on looks or mileage, they have a test plan they follow for everything. Coils and plugs are #1 on that list I think! They also look for a specific DTC (Error code), and check the fuel pressure on start-up.
I got lucky because the service manager at the local dealership is in my Mini club.
If you are going to be working on it yourself, you will need a good scan tool that can read the BMW proprietary codes, like the Schwaben scan tool from ECS Tuning. Most general code readers will not read these codes. They read some, but not all. Mine paid for itself in a matter of days. I’ve had AutoZone scan my car while it was in limp mode, and they showed 0 codes.... then I went to a euro shop, and their scanner showed 5 codes that the other didn’t even register.

 

@ECS Tuning Yeah, I agree it's not optimal. I just checked the CarFax report and one address for the PO was an island off the coast, so that could be part of it.

I live on a quiet street where we can walk to the shore in about 10 minutes. I swear when the wind is calm I can hear my cars rusting.

 

+1 on the scan tool, I agree 100%. I experienced something similar with all my VW's. I also agree that misfires can be related to so many things, it's impossible to generalize a solution, sometimes even with codes.

Coils, plugs, fuel filter all replaced. A tank of raw c12 made the stumble go away for a bit, but now it seems to be coming back. The dealer didn't find any codes for the fuel pressure or HPFP two weeks ago. (Or I should say, the SA said there were no codes, and new coils would solve the misfire.)

Sounds like you had great luck with the warranty replacement.

 

<24 hrs for me I think.

 

Probably the salt on the roads unless people are driving the car on the beach...
I use to live in Florida where you can feel the salt in the humidity of the air but it wasn't as bad as one winter in Chicago.

At the end of the winter, you need to spray down your entire car with warm water mixed with a little vinegar and then rinse off the dilute vinegar. The dilute vinegar will react, solvate, and neutralize the salt. I'd say do it during the winter too but it would be endless and your car would become an icicle.

Remember cold snow and slush mixed with ice, hits engine, water evaporates, the only thing left is salt. Salt from the road will attack your engine bay before any other thing on your car that will get rain to wash the salt back off. How do you shocks and shock-body mounts look? I would really worry about those based on this other stuff. That is one of the first things to rust out that can't really be fixed usually.