I jumped in the car this morning, pushed the start button, put it in reverse, and backed out of the garage. The car stalled immediately. I thought I had screwed up with the clutch. (My wife was looking at the window and laughed at me.) But it wouldn't start again.


The engine would turn over and then stall. I would try to give it a bunch of gas, but it wouldn't keep going. Did this about 6 times. Let it rest for five minutes. Same problem a couple of times. Then I tried pushing the sport button in conjunction with giving it a bunch of gas and it didn't stall. It's now running in the driveway.

Any ideas what this would be? Doesn't seem like a battery problem because it starts at first - all the lights and stereo work.

I'm going to go back out, turn it off and try to start again.

 

Don't know why the original stall, but, if you smell gas, you flooded it. If there was a significant weather/temp change from the last time you drove it, it could just be the computer taking a while to adjust.

 

I know it's a completely different car, but used to happen to me all of the time on my old 2002 Hyundai Elantra.

At the time, I lived in north Florida while attending college. I'd get up early in the morning and leave for classes and my car just wouldn't turn over. I'd have to sit there for about 10 minutes continually giving it gas while turning the ignition. Eventually, it started. Usually this happened while parking the car on an incline while the gas was under 1/8th of a tank.

Strange thing is, after moving the L.A., it's never happened again. I wonder if it had less to do with my gas tank being almost empty, and more with the drastic temperature changes (or humidity) that north Florida is known for.

 

I didn't smell gas, but flooding is possible. I went 20 feet before it stalled. I last drove it at 8:00 last night. The temp didn't vary by more than about 20 degrees in that time. I park on a flat surface and filled up 50 miles ago.

After letting it run for 10 minutes. It started easily many times. I left it at home and my wife will try to start it every 30 minutes or so. I'm going to call the dealer and ask them about it. This car has about 1100 miles on it.

 

I just talked to my dealer and he said they are getting a lot of this. He said it is a gas problem and that Virginia is particularly bad. Apparently Virginia gas is 10% ethanol. Some places blend in more, but they're not supposed to. After sitting for overnight the fuel separated a bit and the car was getting water instead of gas. This makes some sense to me. I bought a new tank yesterday at a locally-owned, non-chain store. This is the second tank my MINI has gotten there. No problem with the first.

The SA said the best thing to do is buy from a reputable chain. He recommended Sunoco. I live in a county with 1 chain store - BP - so I'll try it.

From the Virginia DEQ site. It's directed at gas stations, but seems to fit this situation.
Any ethanol blended fuel or (E10) will necessitate use of different fuel (dispenser) filters and require you to be diligent about preventing any water in your tanks. The ethanol will add necessary octane to the fuel, but any water in the tank may mix with the ethanol and lower the octane or make vehicles run unacceptably.

Has anyone else had this problem like the SA said? In fact he said that some folks have had the car stop while driving and others haven't been able to start it after letting it sit for 4 days or so. He said the computer gets so confused by the gas that it thinks something more is wrong and it shuts the car down.

 

Could be a dose of bad gas :(
Or just that the R56, like the R50/53, can't handle the gas formulation changes winter->summer and summer->winter (if you have that in VA?)

 

Posts crossed paths!

Ethanol has a great problem with water - any not perfect underground tank that has some water seepage into it can play havoc with our MINI engines - which sadly aren't as well educated as some other cars to handle poor gas.

Definitely go to popular gas stations, where the tanks are being refilled regularly as the product sells.
I find Sunoco 91 (rather than 93) is much better for my MINI(s).

It's a big shame that the R56 new engine design wasn't improved in this area.

 

Also try take off your gas cap and listen for suction. I've heard of 1 mc where there was a faulty breather tube and the tank developed suction starving the engine.

 

The car's been running fine since that one instance. There was one time when I started it that it sputtered a bit, but it hasn't stalled and has seemed fine. Hopefully that will continue.

I didn't do anything to fix it - never got dry gas. It didn't make sense to me. If the problem is ethanol - why add more?

 

Your car might have learned to handle the different gas formulation - if that's what it was. Hoping you don't have a recurrence (but I'll be fascinated to know if it recurs once more, near the end of the year!)

 

If you do this when the car is running, it will cause the check engine light to come on and it may stay on for quite a while.

 

Can fuel injected cars even get flooded? Sorry, minorly off topic.