touche!

 

So at just under 23,000 miles I noticed that my hood scoop was starting to deform after I did some work on the car. I pulled the scoop and reshaped it with a heat gun. I then opened up the center five blocked vents with a Dremal tool. I lined the part of the sccop that was warping with a left over piece of Dynamat hood liner and reinstalled the scoop. After driving the car now the scoop remains cool to the touch but the hood behind it is still hot.

PROBLEM SOLVED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Wanna fix mine?

 

sorry to sound like a retard but what exactly is "lining"? i´ve googled dynamat and it´s apparently some sort of laminated material, but what do you do with it you just stick underneath the hood scoop and thats it?

 

Dynamat Hood liner is a foam matting with adhesive on one side and a thin aluminum lining on the other side. I trimmed out a small piece and placed it so the aluminum side would be facing the turbo. This lining will help reflect the heat away from the hood scoop. So far it's working. I have a road trip tomorrow with the Northeast Mini Group so it will get a workout. I am not expecting any problems though.

 

Scottab, if you can, take a few pix of what you did and post them on here. You may have the answer to this riddle...

 

this sounds like yet another reason to like the 1st gen cooper S better then the 2nd.
seriously though.
If you open up the grill with a dremel tool. you can buy one with all the attachments from "mexican labor training depot" (home depot) for about $50, then return it because of there lack of support to stop the day laborers from hanging in front of the stores. youll have a spot for the heat to escape. if you then place the dyna matt on the underside of the hood at a 2' square of the turbo location, you can even line the entire bottom if you wish to preserve the paint from the intense heat. go for the thinnest stuff with the foil on one side, (it adds a little unwanted weight to the car).
you will not have any more issues.
Now if only the "engineers" who located the turbo in the wrong place to begin with, would read these posts, the owners would not have to spend time fixing bad designs, and instead being out on the road enjoying there "toys"

 

But how would I go about this if I want to support the labor training of Mexican day laborers? Should I not return the dremel tools? (I hate when politics complicates automobile maintenence....it gets so confusing!!)

 

I would not say it's in the wrong place or bad design, rather MINI failed to re-evaluate a material choice after a major design change. MINI knew there would be more heat with the turbo and may have knowingly decided to not change the scoop material. Bad design is when systems do not work or fails. While the scoop is near and dear to our esthetic sensitivities, it does not rank as a system failure. Just my perspective and I do think MINI should address this issue.

 

What does this have to do with the price of eggs?

 

actually i do think it's a bad design. if they would have found a way to provide a better shield from the beginning or even find a way to lower the turbo unit by a few inches, or add a better way for heat to escape from under the hood, they would still be able to use the same scoop material, and solve the melting problem at the same time.

 

It's legally more of an omission than a bad design. Bad design to designers implies, incompetence, I don't think MINI was incompetent.

 

guess as a professional car builder/customizer, i see it as a bad design.
if I buy a part for a 32 low boy and it does not work the correct way where it is located i will redisign and or alter whatever i have to in order to make it look as nice as possible while performang at its most optimal potential.
(i.e.) If BMW tested the location of the turbo. Which i will guarantee they did. Should have as a professional company and car designer. Should have redesigned or altered the design in order to not possibly burn the vehicle to the ground.

 

So after the MINI GTG run with failrly spirited driving the scoop has again started to deform after I straightened it out.

I will be going with either the chrome scoop or the carbon fiber in order to eliminate the problem. I will also be posting the heat issue on the NHSTA web site to draw more attention the this problem. Everyone suffering this problem should to the same so BMW/MINI will correctly addresses the problem.

 

Good ideas. Check to see if the chrome scoop is chrome paint on plastic or a real chrome on metal, I have heard it maybe plastic in which case it's performance maybe similar to the original.

 

FYI, I bought the chrome scoop aftermarket from a MINI dealer. It is the same ABS plastic as the stock scoop, but with a chrome finish. Looks great, but I don't see that it could handle a heat problem any better than the stock one.

 

Well, this is what I've done so far.




I didn't take it all the way out, I lifted the center part of the scoop while it was still hot and let it cool down with the pressure applied (pliers stuffed in the middle of it)

Tomorrow I'm going to put some audio mat to help getting hot.

The scoop is much better but not perfect, it's hardly noticeable at all.

It was REALLY warped in the center before so hopefully this will help. There's really no point in taking it in to the dealership and having them replace it with another defective part.

Mark

 

Excellent advice, assuming BMW/MINI pays attention to it. At least it documents our concerns.

I didn't know what part to file it under, so I selected engine/engine cooling.

 

i plan on taking it to the dealer as much as possible in hopes that they can give me a gooood deal on a cf jcw

 

Don't hold your breath.

 

I am just starting to get the melting hood scoop problem after owning the car for 4 months. The droop is not super noticeable yet but I don't want to replace the scoop with another plastic one if BMW doesn't do anything to fix the problem. My question is, since it doesn't look like most dealers are going to replace plastic hood scoops with carbon one, has anyone had any luck at least getting a discount on a carbon one. A new plastic scoop goes for about $80 (retail) and with paint and labor I would think the cost to the company would be at least $100 to $150. If I could get a dealer to sell me a carbon scoop less the cost to replace the defective one I would probably jump on it

 

theres one issue a lot of you folks are missing in regards to a carbon fibre scoop.
it is a fiberglass with resin design, and although will not warp from the heat given off by the "bad turbo location" design, it will still dry out, crack and split because of the heat.
so unless you shield the heat from the scoop, you are still going to have issues. although it will take longer to have the same effect.

 

Are we talking days, weeks, months, years here? Do you think it would be any different if it were painted?

 

I may have a similar issue, and I have the factory chrome scoop. It isn't buckling, but there is a bubble at the top center. Plan to go to the dealership and see what's up. (besides the section of the scoop.) Grrr.
BTW - car has less than 4K miles on it!

 

Guess this confirms what we've been suspecting--the "chrome" isn't really "chrome" metal.