First post on North American Motoring - here comes the new girl.

We bought a 2013 MCS in August, which now has 7,500 miles on it. Automatic trans (yes, I admitted to it - lots of heavy traffic in the NYC metro area).

Today, I started my baby and was greeted with the engine light on yellow, and the car idling around 2,500 RPMs. After sitting for about 10 minutes, RPMs went down to about 2,000; figured the engine indicator was due to the cold. Made it down our hill and once I attempted to accelerate the car would sputter horrendously and jerk any time I'd get over 1,700 RPMs and/or 14-17 mph. Couldn't actually get it to accelerate any higher than that, as it felt like the engine would lose power. Pulled over, put the car in park, called Roadside (after three hours of being on hold I was disconnected, without getting to speak to a rep - another rant for another thread).

Sat in the car with the engine on for an hour, then turned around and went home - engine light still on yellow, engine still sputtering/jerking after exceeding the aforementioned limits. Feels like driving a stick when you're not keeping the RPMs high enough.

7 hours later, still waiting for any information from my local dealership and Roadside Assistance, and am now searching threads for possible answers. I went out to the car about an hour ago and took it for a spin around the block; engine light is off and the engine feels closer to normal, but it's still nowhere near it's former glory.

So, MC community... Should I chalk this one up to it being 5*F today with a windchill of -2*F (yes, it's parked outside), and wait to see if it's alleviated by warmer weather?

 

Sorry to hear your MCS is giving you problems.
I hope you get some answers soon.
I have been driving my 2014 in sub zero temps and haven't had issues so I count myself lucky.
I am curious about the cause of the problem with your MINI and suspect low oil. The valve timing is dependent on oil pressure and flow. Your description fits low oil & cold weather.
The symptoms may however be caused by a number of problems.

I look forward to hearing what your dealer has to report.

I am especially disappointed to hear MINI USA left you stranded without assistance. They don't mind telling you how great the service is before you need it.

I would love to hear that explanation.

Good luck. Hopefully it will be an easy fix.

 

I had similar issues with mine, sputtering with no power between 1700-2200, but not weather related. Was at dealer a number of times until they found the spark plugs went out of gap...strange but fine now.

 

I had a similar issue(still dealing with it). Driving along and suddenly lost power and it began misfiring/sputtering/ jerking bad. Got the car back home and went all over it. No vacuum hoses loose, cleaned the valves to no avail, cleaned injectors. Finding now with all cylinders misfiring and getting the multiple misfire code, plugs are black(rich running conditions), and fouled. Waiting on new plugs now to see if they, themselves are the issue. Mr. R58 here is not the first person I've seen have multiple spark plugs give issues at the same time. They still fire, but very weak and sporadic because of the gap. It makes sense for the symptoms to be a spark related issue as the plugs are very black from unburnt fuel. If there was a fuel issue causing it like say the HPFP the plugs would be white or very very light brown from a lean running condition.

Hopefully new plugs help you like they did R58, hopefully they help me as well, whenever Pelican parts/USPS get them to me, because I've checked literally everything else and the car has been down for 3-4 weeks now :(

 

That sound like it is caused by ice condensing on the intake manifold. Yoour car is really too new to have the throttle sticking or other parts not working.

 

Thanks for the tips, all. Car has been at the dealership's service station for 2 days now and still no updates on when it will get looked at or what the problem is.. Will share their findings with you when I hear back from them.

 

I just experienced a similar issue with my 2012 Cooper Coupe also auto. When I turn the engine off the radiator fan that runs very loud under the hood for some amount of time. When I went back to the car the fan was off. Started it up and got the yellow "emissions" light (the one shaped like an engine). I have connected so I went to the vehicle status screen and it says all systems OK. My trip was a short one (probably less than 2 miles) so I don't know if that is part of it. It's also very rainy today. I stopped at the grocery store and had the same fan running after shutting it off. When I cam back out of the store the fan was no longer running. Same yellow light though and it definitely started rough. Made it the short drive home and again had the fan run after turning the engine off.

Had the oil changed a few weeks ago. I noticed that the coolant level in the overflow tank was about 1/2 inch under the MIN line so I topped it off but it didn't seem to matter.

I guess this isn't something that is going to just resolve itself. The manual says that the light means problems in the emissions system which I guess could mean the spark plugs?

 

So, in my case it was a temperature sensor. Apparently MINI has a service campaign to fix these. I guess that's different from a recall? They certainly didn't contact me about it. And the dealer I took it to for oil service a few weeks ago didn't bring it up. But the SA at the dealer I took it to today mentioned it right away and suggested that it sounded like it would be the fix for my problem. And it was.

 

Yes last year my engine light came on, took to dealer and it was coolant temp sensor, weird how its not a recall, I guess they wait for them to go bad.

 

This is a mixture error issue most likely too rich as someone stated. Spark plugs don't foul themselves, and the gap cannot magically change either lol. Doesn't sound like the fuel pump, that won't raise the idle after starting.

Yup when the fan runs on it thinks it need cooling down.

 

Hi Kids!

Sorry for the delayed update. Service reported back to us after 2 days that it was a one-time on board computer error, and that the issue was resolved once the computer was reset. I'm not totally convinced of this, since the car is still not running as smoothly as it was prior to the original engine malfunction weeks ago. They also performed an oil change and topped off the fluids in the car. I've since purchased fuel at a different station, but am still getting the same slow, cranky performance. Our car has turned into a grandpa; perhaps it's due to the cold weather. We'll see what happens once the spring arrives.

 

This is not right. I have a 2013 MCS 6sp. I'm in Chicago and we've had some -20 weather recently and 0% problems. I'd take the car back, insist on leaving it and think about contacting Mini USA. It should be 100%. In fact, with cold weather the car should feel more powerful, as every other car I have even driven is.

 

Had the same issues in my wife's Countryman S last year. She was driving home in lots of falling and blowing snow in a blizzard and the engine light lit up and it did felt like it had no turbo anymore and was very slow. She got it home and after driving it for myself I guessed that maybe the intake sucked up blowing snow and froze on the filter blocking airflow since I had had this on my snowblower in similar conditions. I let it idle for about 30 minutes parked so no cold wind blowing in the engine bay, and no snow getting sucked up. I then restarted the car and it ran perfect and engine light went away but still felt like power not quite there. I then let it idle for another hour and took it for a spin and all power was back. Have not had this problem again since, but also have not been in driving in such white out condition in it since. I'm assuming somewhere in the intake path snow was getting in and freezing choking the motor until the turbo got too hot and then the computer shut it down to protect itself... Maybe? This would also explain how power returned but not completely. As the turbo cooled and could get air power started coming back but was still being constricted.

I know you said your problem started when you started the car in the cold, but were you driving in blowing snow or behind cars kicking up lots of snowdust the day prior? Perhaps you had the same thing happen but it didn't effect the car until you shut down and some melted from engine temp and then refroze in a worse spot when off? May not be the case... but you never know. If you have somewhere warm to park it or possibly let it idle out of the wind to get the engine bay warm it may solve your problem and restore the power. Also if this the case, the dealer may not find any problems.

I've never had this in my truck but that sits much higher and engine bay/intake is usually out of the path of the worst blowing snow and the intake is much bigger so it would be very difficult to choke it. My roadster has not had this happen but I drive my truck when the snow is blowing/falling like that.