between here and the UK, MANY more than 25

 

Maybe the person got lucky and shut down the engine with the noisy valve closed. That might allow the engine's residual oil to re-fill the lifter.

I was thinking about the actual number of cases the other day and rooted around. I found the following:

I first looked up NAM's cold-start "database" thread. 169 posts, minus 101 DISCUSSION posts, left 68 reported cases of the problem. Even though the thread was marked "no discussion", 59% of the posts were discussion and did not report a new case.

This got me thinking: if, on a thread marked "database, no discussion" a majority of the posts were essentially repeats, what does that tell us about the other threads and what sort of actual numbers they represent?

There are 876 posts on this thread. Add that to the 169 on the database thread equals 1,045 posts discussing 68 actual cases of cold-start rattle made on NAM. This means a ratio of problems to posts of about 6%.

Given that database threads are rare, I would think that outside of NAM, the ratio of problems to posts is lower by a bit. That would make for a lot of posts being generated by a very small number of actual problems.

Here's another way of looking at it. There were 54,077 Minis sold in the US in 2008. 6% of that number is 2,644. If those are the people who get the cold-start noise, AND each person posts 10 times about the problem, that makes for 26,440 posts, 26 times the number of posts here in NAM, for a problem that effects only 6% of all the MINIs in the USA.

Note that I low-balled the number of posts per person, to factor in the people not on-line, or who choose not to post at all, or (like me) don't have the problem and post about it, anyway.

I think the only point this makes is it's impossible to obtain meaningful, real-world occurance rates from web posts. Too many variables and an incomplete sampling of the population.

 

So... not to play DA here, but if U went out to Luigi and experienced the rattle first hand, might this change yr perceptions? After all, folks in moderate climes are reporting it as well.

 

let's use round number. 100 people who post on NAM have the problem. If there are 5000 R55/R56 S owners on NAM, that's about 2% of the cars. While this is a small percentage, it's huge in terms of potential engine problems. In three years of the Prince engine, that's 750k cars, say a quarter are the turbo.... Or 190k Turbo engines. 2% of that is 3000-4000 cars that have the issue.

And that's a minimum because it assumes everyone that has it posts. If only half do (and there are a lot of reasons that people might not want to post), then that's getting close to 10k cars with the problem world wide. That's a huge number if you think about the potential impact. If they did a recall where it was $1000 per car to fix, that's $10,000,000 in potential warranty costs! Yikes!

Once again, this is using very round numbers, but it gives one an idea of the potential magnatude. Also a 2% chance that a new MCS will have some potentially severe engine issue that may or may not be covered by Mini would give many new buyers pause....

Matt

 

You're not gonna get any meaningful numbers from forum posts.

I have the cold start rattle and have not posted in the database thread, for instance.

 

Thank you for illustrating this so clearly Matt. I agree with your logic 100%.

Extending the use of your figures a bit further based on my own observations here on NAM, let's say of the 100 people you postulate are posting half of them (50) have unambiguously heard the death rattle but believe it is "normal" either due to blissful ignorance, assumptions from past experience, or a tacit reassurance from their dealer. Another 25 or so have a nagging feeling about the potential severity but have no plans to keep their MINI past the warranty period so to them absence of cost risk = little to fret about. So the number of posters who are actively trying to socialize the issue represents only 0.5% or less of R55/R56 owners on NAM with their online presence further diluted by exclusively 1st Gen posters. It's no wonder that BMW can remain evasive on the magnitude of the issue and continue to consider our online complaints "in the noise."

The real interesting statistics would be the actual dealer records of reported death rattle complaints and associated engine failures. The one report in this thread offering insight into a single dealer's experience in a relatively small market revealed that this dealer had "...already replaced several engines for broken timing chains, and that one just came into the shop this morning." Multiply this by the total number of dealerships, bump it up further by the relative market share, and you end up with a fairly significant number. By contrast, I'm only aware of a handful of posts across several different online MINI communities that report related engine failures due to chain breakage. The logical conclusion is that the frequency of engine failures is under-reported online as well.

I'm also seeing a gradually growing number of people who fall into your potential "buyers pause" category. I'm one of them, as I have no reason to believe that the R57 is not similarly afflicted.

 

but then also consider the number of US bbs forums, that many of those members may not belong to NAM, and going across the pond to the merry old UK M2 and Europe in general, Australia-- this could be a global thing, esp if certain Peugeot cars are afflicted. so if U take the NAM numbers and add roughly a conservative 30%... U bet yr sweet **** that bmw/psa engineers are sweating this one, 'cause it could snowball on them just like that >snap< as these engines age and gain miles. I smell bad medicine down the path.

been about 1K since I had my first rattle, but everytime I start it cold, I hold my breath, even at 60 degrees...

(maybe BMW/MINI better go back to Chrysler/Fiat for thier future engines)

 

Sequence beat me to the keyboard, but if you're gonna crunch numbers and assumptions, don't forget to add in the non-English MINI forums, too. I'm sure the French have some colorful things to say about the Prince engine

 

what I did was take NAM as a representative pool, estimate a percentage, then look at the whole pool of cars produced. That last step would add in every other BBS and non-internet connected people as well.

By looking at the percentages of other forums, the 2%-3% number might get more accurate, and that would effect the total number estimated. Whatever the number, I think my estimate is probably within a factor of 2 one way or the other.

Matt

 

Matt, I am not quibbling with your estimates or opinion, but will add another way of looking at it.

Absent definitive information as to the cause of the rattle, it is also possible that ALL turbo engines are affected, but that many have not yet manifested the problem for whatever reason.

Now, more questions to ponder: 1) assume Mini finally identifies a fix and applies it only to those cars which have experienced the problem. Having not experienced the problem how would you (not Matt, but any owner) feel about keeping your Mini beyond the warranty period if the engine warranty is not extended? If the problem is truly a small percentage, I would think this the likely outcome.

2) Assume Mini instead applies the fix to all turbo vehicles, but does not extend the warranty. Your car had the rattle, and now runs fine. However, you have no way of knowing if there was any internal damage done. Without an extended engine warranty, how comfortable are you keeping your former death rattle car? Does that change if Mini tells you there was no damage caused to the car if the chain did not break?

I bring these up because at some point Mini will solve this. These are real world questions that Mini owners may have to answer in the future.

 

After multiple complaints to Classic MINI about the consistent Cold Start Rattle, all I can say is I'm glad mine is leased. NO WAY would I ever consider out-right owning a MINI. The only way to drive a MINI, is to drive it within its warranty period. Period!

 

To answer the question, I won't know what I'll do when I hear the noise until I hear it. Given the videos of the problem are inconclusive, and it's impossible to tell exactly what is causing the noise even with the engine torn down, all I can do is drive my car as I've always done until it breaks, then get it fixed to the best I can get it done. If the problem is the rattle and I can't get it fixed, then I'm going to judge the problem based on the conditions I see in front of me.

My point earlier was that it's very difficult to derive population data from web posts. There are too many variables involved and I was trying to show that even a small percentage of malfunctions in a large fleet of cars could trigger a lot of posts, making the problem seem bigger than it really is.

 

I am considering a new 09 JCW 6-speed and have read through this thread. It appears that there are few factory JCWs that have this problem, is that an accurate assessment? Or, am I just falsely trying to convince myself that the risk is low because I really like the JCW? Thanks!

regards,
Michael

 

There is a risk since the JCW and the MCS motors are mechanically similiar. I take it you haven't got a production number yet, so it's all going to depend on what future modified/redesigned parts will be assembled into your future rocket car on the motor's future production date. Just before you hand over the downpayment check to the salesman, you'd better have a "Come to Jesus" understanding with him about what you expect in terms of any possible "death rattle" issues.

We're all hoping the fix is immenent ...

 

Yes JCWs are affected as well.

 

I concur - my JCW engine is the crankiest in the cold and I do have oil starvation issues when cold.

 

assuming damage is done to internal parts in the engine what do u people think would be the maximum possible cost to fix our engines after warrenty?

 

Until the actual cause of the problem is determined and actual damage is seen, there's no way to determine what sort of costs there will be involved with fixing it.

 

Well, I think for a number of reasons, including the fact that it's a good financial deal (feb money factor of 0.0219), I'm gonna do a 24 or 36 month lease @ 15K miles per year. If the whole thing blows up in my face, I'm cool, if not, I'm even cooler.

 

I suspect that the percentage of MINIs with the problem is much much higher, given that BMW/MINI is currently focused on a design flaw as the root cause, which would indicate the same flaw is present in all MCS and JCW vehicles sold up to a certain point (or still being sold, given that the most recent 'fix' has not been resulting in success). Also, given that many users both on NAM and MINI2 have had their entire engines replaced and even the entire car, only to have the problem return, would also tend to indicate a very high rate of occurrence (either that, of there are some EXTREMELY unlucky owners out there ). While it is true that people experiencing a problem are more likely to post compared to those who are not experiencing an issue, there are also people who will hesitate to post that their vehicle has a problem, and some may not even be aware that it is a problem. Not to mention the users on these forums only represent a small percentage of total MINI owners.

There is no doubt that this problem is very common; what is in doubt is the severity of the problem. There are only now starting to be reports of owners who have experienced this noise and subsequently had a broken timing chain, which may (or may not) be related. Given that a design flaw in the timing chain mechanism is where BMW/MINI have focused their attention, a resulting broken timing chain seems like a possible outcome in extreme cases. Of course, it could only be coincidental.

 

Agree that it could be coincidental, but every single instance of complete engine failure due to breakage of the timing chain that I've seen here and in other references were either directly or by association linked to bad or repeated occurrences of the cold start death rattle. I have observed no reports of chain breakages that were "out of the blue" (i.e., not associated with a previous instance of the rattle). IMHO, pretty strong circumstantial evidence that the timing chain breakages are closely tied to prior observation(s) of the death rattle.

 

anyone have links to threads where timing chains broke?

 

Just off the top of my head, here are 3 with multiple reports in two of them:

http://www.r56mcs.com/index.php?topic=20.msg91#msg91

http://www.mini2.com/forum/2nd-gen-f...n-cold-83.html

http://www.mini2.com/forum/2nd-gen-f...-beat-you.html

There are more out there if you care to take the time to dig for them. Oh, and don't forget the smoking gun reported in Post #866 in this thread.

 

ok thanks, from the posts you've mentioned it looks like 3 confirmed cases of chains broken. I had missed post 866 and I hadn't seen any of the other posts confirming them.

 

If you dig into those links you'll find more than just 3 confirmed cases...