Hello. I have a 2012 NA Mini Cooper R56 (~75k mi, manual transmission) having some issues. Any ideas or direction would be appreciated. I uploaded some pics to give a rough idea of what's happening. The photos are kind of random but I can get some more if that'll be helpful.

Day 1:
The car started cold perfectly fine.
Drove it about a mile to a store, ran inside for 2 mins, and when I came out I noticed the radiator fan was still on even though the car was off.
Huh.jpg

When I attempted to start the car, the starter motor seemed to do its job well enough and got the warm engine cranking, but for a few seconds the engine sputtered and sounded like a lawn mower coughing up phleghm.

After a few seconds of engine sputtering it normalized and car sounded/drove normal, purring along nicely. Drove 1 mile back home.


Day 2:
Again, car started up cold with no problem.
Drove 1 mile to store with car running fine.
Turn off car, go in store, come out and fan is still running.
Start up warm engine again and it sputters and chokes, but then normalizes after a few seconds.
herewegoagain.jpg

I drive it home and park it.
Decide to let it cool down and start it back up a bit later, and just let it idle so I can observe.
While idling, I noticed a little bit of smoke coming out of the tailpipe (smelled a bit like oil).
Turned the car off after idling a few mins and this time the radiator fan didn't come on (prob because the idling engine never got hot enough in the first place).
Finally, I came back to the car later that evening and noticed a huge puddle (~2.5ft diameter on asphalt) of oil that appears to be trickling off the bottom of the oil pan.

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11


Other notes: Car has been parked since. Dip stick is still showing a decent level of oil. Coolant reservoir is low.

Thoughts/ideas/direction?

Thanks.

 

I have the same problem, minus the oil leak.
I have topped off the coolant, will run again until warm to see if the level goes down, then top off again if necessary.
Looking at replacing the coolant temp sensor.

 

Check those oil cooler housing gaskets those are prone to hardening up and there's your oil leaks.