All -

My car is sidelined, and I am hoping one of the technical geniuses who surf this forum can offer suggestions.

My 05 Cooper S has a problem I believe to be electrical in nature. On three occasions, my car sputtered and hesitated after starting in the morning. The car drove roughly, almost as though the engine was misfiring; however, once the engine had warmed up a bit, I restarted the car and it ran perfectly normally. On this last occasion, before the engine had a chance to warm up, it just shut off on the side of the road. I tried to restart it, and the engine would turn over and start, but would run very roughly and eventually would cut out. After a while, it cut out, and it still will not start

The common factor of these occurrence was that on the night before, the car sat out in heavy rain. This is why I am convinced that moisture has caused the problem.

Also, I have a Screamin' Demon coil, 8.5 mm wires, and Beru cold plugs, all of which have about 40K miles on them.

My car just came out of warranty, and if there is something simple I can try before having my car towed to the dealership and paying them to diagnose, that would make me happy.

Any ideas???

Thanks.

 

Any lights coming on?

Good luck!

 

I'd try putting the stock coil and wires back on... and see if the symptoms continue.

My guess is they'll go away

 

The 3rd brake light (possibly the trunk seal too) can leak in heavy rain, and the water will drip onto the carpet and ultimately into the battery compartment. There, the moisture causes problems until it evaporates. I have some surface rust under the carpet and have had the same electrical issues as you described before. I've also seen the water drip and felt the moisture in the carpet. It all dried out well enough. Not sure on how to fix the leak or seal it better. It isn't much of an issue to me since my car is normally in the garage, and a towel in the trunk helps absorb the water.

Just thought I'd add this, I've seen photos on here of someone with a flooded battery box.

 

As other's have stated it sounds like an electrical problem (Mini_joe rightly states to try with the stock coilpack and wires and nabeshin brought up an interesting scenario with leaking and checking the battery area/connections). As a long shot, I have to say my 03 MCS had a hard time towards the end starting/idling in cold and wet conditions after sitting and as a fuel-injector cleaner additive helped it temporarily I was thinking that the fuel injectors were what needed replacement as they were clogged preventing correct detonation. That was around 70k for me. Good luck.

 

If you have a sunroof, another possibility is that the sunroof drains are plugged and you are getting moisture in the front. Check for moisture under the carpeting in the front. Good luck!

 

Sunroof?

Drains under the glass can clog causing water to spill into the cabin inside of the upholstry, leaking down to the floor where it can damage electronics. JustJay and MiniNurse had that happen to them a couple years back in DC and took it to the dealer. Dealer fixed everything under warranty I believe.

Check for dampness in the footwells and carpet. May be a little late now, but who knows, willing to check anything to find a culprit, eh?

 

Use a water spray bottle and wet down the coil and wires. if you do this at night and have bad wires its a great show!

 

Thanks to all who offered advice. As suggested, I replaced the sparkplugs with NGK Iridiums, and re-installed the stock wires and coil. That did not solve the problem.

I also order a Peake scanner and came up with the following codes:

P2096
P03
P2301
P2304

From my research, 2096 signals lean fuel reading on the O2 sensor after the cat. 2301 and 2304 deal with the coil. I have no idea what P03 is.

Does this give anyone any ideas?