He's more likely covered in brake dust, or left-over grit from your recent service, unless your exhaust system fell off, as well.

 

Well, since these new engines are direct injected (think diesel) then all bets are off, I have little experience with this type of injection outside of my diesel tractor. However, that explains the high pressure pump, and yes they do operate at very high pressure - which is why you get extremely good atomization and better fuel economy and power. Mechanical fuel injeceted gasoline engines of the 50's and 60's (early MBZ like the 300SL and Porsche 911S) also used very high injection pressures, but as this system was mechanical it did not have the fine tuning ability that modern electronics afford. In the old style mech injection, they used the mechanical injection pump that provided both timing and injection quantity to provide the high pressure, although the supply pump was also much higher pressure than a normaly aspirated or carburetted car would have.

Bottom line, I could see a failed high pressure pump causing a hard start or poor running problem, I'm not sure how it could cause carbon buildup in the manifold, and only on one cylinder. if anything, i would think it would be lean on that cylinder, not rich.

I also do not think it's a design problem or a bad gas problem, rather a failed part problem of some sort. My bet would have been on one of the peizoelectric injectors, but..............

 

Wait....wait....wait.....These engines are direct injected?....meaning the injecter goes directly into the cylinder? Then how could they be blaming the deposits in the head in the #4 intake prior to the valve on bad gas? While I've rebuilt a classic Mini engine, I have to claim complete ignorance on my wife's '07 MINI engine. I haven't even looked at a diagram of it. If the fuel is being injected directly into the combustion chamber, any deposits prior to the intake valve would logically be coming from combustion products blowing past the intake valve (i.e. a mechanical or timing problem). I must be missing something, here. Am I exposing my stupidity?

HHH

 

I had a chunk O carbon break off in my Toyota PU's 22R engine (nearly 400K on the clock) once and it def created problems, sounded like the engine was choking and sputtering on one cylinder. But I was able to creep into a parking lot, rev it up a bit, and after about 5 minutes the problem cleared up on its own. Very scary and unsettling.

 

Yes, the clicking U hear at idle is DI doing its thing. But I dunno, man. I think the "bad gas" rationale is waaaaaay off here. My SA says these cars run rich when cold, so maybe????

 

Now you know why I've been confused by what's being written here - there's a lot of misinformation in this thread. I also don't know how bad gas can cause the problem, unless it's causing the injector to foul and the cylinder is running rich because of it - but why is it always #4? Again, that would be the hard start, poor cold running situation, but excess carbon buildup?

OK, here's a theory.....

The bad gas causes the injector to leak, diluting the lubrication in that cylinder causing blow by, oil burning and the resulting carbon buildup, but that would be in either the head around the valves, or on the valves themselves, but not in the intake manifold, and again, why only on #4?

Back when, Audi/VW engines had a carbon buildup problem that was fixed by having the customers run techroline additive in their fuel. On cars that were badly carboned up, they did a procedure involving "sandblasting" the valves using walnut shells - but again, it wasn't the intake manifold that was carboned up.

So, maybe the problem is carbon buildup on the intake valves, not the manifold as reported by the OP?

 

drive it like you steal it for 20% of the time the motor run, i.e. accelerate until redline and let the computer shift.. that way carbon build-up is minimize significantly

 

That's fine.

But, why is the carbon building up in the head prior to the intake valve if the fuel is being injected directly into the combustion chamber & not into the port?

 

Had an old MG once that had a intake valve that didn't seat right... let some of the combustion chamber gases blow back out... Of course the car ran like crap so it was obvious something was wrong...

 

I've decided that I've been driving way too conservatively for the first 23k miles. I've started driving with the sport mode on full time and revving higher than I used to, hoping to blast out that excessive carbon. Will probably drop my gas mileage a bit, but screw it. Gas is cheap again. Bonus. It's sure more fun to drive as well. Had to switch out 2 worn tires yesterday. More grippy now too. Hopefully no more light turn on.

 

I agree. We've been driving more in Sports Mode now, & it's definitely more fun.

But, I'm still concerned (like others who have posted) about carbon forming prior to the intake valve when the fuel is being injected directly into the combustion chamber. That logically sounds like a mechanical (timing? design?) problem.

 

Love the sport mode too!! I wonder if the software has anything to do with it. Tinkered with older engines and you could always retard or advance the timing just by turning the distributor. Now everything is controlled by the computer. A MINI owner from the same build week as mine, had some problems with their MINI. MINI tried to fix it, but didn't figure out what was wrong and decided to flash the software and the problem went away.

 

too bad Sport mode on is not default... that, getting on the highway full throttle regularly, and bottle of Techroline every 5K (or BG-44K every 7500, my fave) should keep the engine clean, along with running Shell or another top-tier gas.

 

Yes, I'm having trouble with this idea as well............

Is it only in '07/'08 cars? Early production cars? Or just those who have a few miles on them now?

I have an '09 Clubby on order is why I ask.............

 

How about this logic.....

We're seeing carbon deposits in the head prior to the intake valve. These deposits may not be limited to, but they seem to favor, the #4 intake.

Fuel is injected directly into the combustion chamber. So, it seems doubtful that "bad fuel" would be in the intake port prior to the intake valve, &, therefore very unlikely that it could be causing the deposits (as suggested by dealer service centers).

I don't claim to be a mechanical expert, and I don't have a schematic of the engine, but I'm guessing the crank case vents into the intake somewhere. Could this be the source of the deposits? This is even more of a stretch, but could it be venting in near the #4 port?

Is there a good drawing of the turbo engine somewhere on the internet?

HHH

 

I too am a parts guys at the local Mini Dealership, if you can say local, we're the only one in AZ. Anyway, reading thru the thread I would have to agree, starting issues are mostly High Pressure Fuel Pumps, I see a few getting installed. As for the carbon build up thankfully I have only seen one R56S, 07 I beleive, in for what you guys are talking about. I have pictures of the build up if your interested.

 

You might be on to something here... I saw this on the Mini2 forums about a new valve cover assembly possibly to fix crank case venting:

http://www.mini2.com/forum/2nd-gen-f...ours-back.html

"Took it back in - been there about ten days now - & they have the head off. Found excessive carbon in the cylinders & intake ports due to what they say is a failure of the new engine's original design to properly filter out oil vapor. There's an updated valve cover assembly to fix this apparently."

The post was from last Nov, so it's possible that the new "emblem-less" covers noted in the "08-09 changes" (https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ges-fixes.html) thread is a new part?



t

 

CaptJacks, I would like to see the pictures if it's not too much trouble. It would be interesting to see if it's similar to mine.

Thanks,
HHH

 

HHH, did you take pics of yours?

 

Unfortunately, no. Supposedly the service center (Momentum in Houston) took some pictures, but I never saw them. Using a mirror, I looked into the #4 intake port in the head, & it looked black. But, it was hard for me to tell how heavy the deposit was.

 

I don't suppose they would let you have copies?

 

I doubt it. They (Momentum MINI) weren't very eager to take care of the problem. i.e. They said the problem wasn't covered by the warranty & tried to charge me about $800. After a "discussion", they agreed to wash out the intake w/ some kind of solvent at no charge as a "one-time good will jesture". I was not impressed by this encounter.

 

The cylinder head that we had was pretty clogged, as I recall it was covered by warranty, as we didn't charge the customer for any repairs.
The main trouble we had was it happened @ Christmas time and the machine shop that we use & trust was closed for the week between the Holiday's, that's what we get for using a privately run business.
Thou I would take him any day of the week, he does amazing work and has a quick turn around.
We ended up using a NAPA machine shop (since our guy was closed) and it took 3 times as long to get it cleaned, don't get me wrong, it looked great when we got it back, it just took too long to get it back.
Damned we do Damned if we didn't kind of thing, needless to say the customer was not happy with the wait.

Let me get these pictures sorted and I'll put a couple up.

 

I have bought a few new cars in my time but I must say I have NEVER been lied to and treated so badly as I have with Mini/BMW. Seems they want to blame all the Mini trouble on the customers. Who wants to have to save every reciept for gas to prove some crap problem with the car they manufactured was not your fault? I'm taking my 2008 Mini/s in tomorrow night to give them a second chance at fixing the cold start issue/valve train rattle. The service advisor told me yesterday that he was going to call Mini USA to see what they want to do with this car, i'm not sure what that means but I can't wait to hear what b/s comes my way tomorrow night.

Problems so far:
1. Excessive valve train rattle
2. windows rolled down by themselves when parked.
3. Has oil leak or transmission leak.

I know 3 things is not alot but the engine rattle is the big issue.

 

Our car has been at the dealer for 7 WEEKS and it's still there. First they couldn't figure out what was wrong. Then they had to wait for special parts from MINI - for over a month. They are still waiting for parts

WTF, it took MINI less time to make the whole car from scratch than to just rebuild the engine