Wow, I havn't seen one mention of Chevron in this thread... I typically use Chevron as it has been recomended by many mechanics that I've come across over the years.

 

I saw the cost on the link. I haven't looked for where the access point is, but I bet it's under the rear seats as it is in the R53. I mentioned to the SA that the car "lost" 3 quarts of oil in a little over a week. The shop has no answer yet on where it went. There are no visible leaks. If Mini doesn't help with the repair, We'll do the Fuel pump ourselves. Wish us luck.

 

It is under the rear seats. It's a 10 minute job at the most. Pull up the seat and remove the 6 nuts.

 

Thank you for the pic. Called dealership this morning, and the SA told me it's not the fuel pump, but the High-pressure 'fuel' pump. That explains the high price quoted @ $1200. I suppose high pressure = high price. This is probably something I'm going to have them do. They seem sure that's the culprit. If I do the work, they aren't going to guarantee that it fixes it. I hate that parts fail just out of warranty. Things fail, and it's just part of life. Still annoying...

 

I'd shop that around. $1200 sounds high offhand. My HPFP failed. Car would barely start and wouldn'd run when it did. Not driveable. I think that pump is in the fuel tank. It was warranty so I didn't get prices.

 

The volume pump is in the tank. The high pressure fuel pump is located at front of the engine, timing chain side.

 

When the bimmers were having HPFP problems a while back BMW extended the warranty to six years. Why want they do the same thing for MINIs?

 

Ahh the money pump...damn direct injection. I can still send you a how-to pdf if you want to attempt it yourself and save some money on labor.

 

Reading this kind of BS makes my head want to explode.

Please people, do NOT let stealerships try to play this "bad gas" card on you! It's a COMPLETE and TOTAL COP-OUT!! In this particularly egregious case, they are claiming "over 20% ethanol". Really? How did they figure that out? Do they have some kind of sophisticated testing equipment that confirmed this? Of course not. The best way to have played this one would have been to be outraged at the news, and then demand that the stealership contact the refiner (Shell in this case) with their "findings", in your presence. 1000-1 they refuse to do that. So, you say YOU'LL do it, and RIGHT NOW, in their presence. Wanna see a service manager develop a case of the eebie-geebies? They'd change their tune in a heartbeat, you can bet on it.

My car isn't even here yet and I'm reading too many "bad gas" stories, along with the carbon buildup issue in general. BMW/Mini has to be held accountable for this stuff.. blaming "bad gas" just ain't cuttin' it!!

 

A while back? The problem continues, 3 years after the introduction of the N54 motor. Dealers STILL claim ignorance to it being a chronic problem, yet all you need to do is browse forums at sites like bimmerfest.com and you'll read horror stories from people having gone through several of them, often in short order. It really distresses me to see that Mini is suffering with the same problem, but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

 

I smelled a rat and looked into this a couple of years ago. First fishy smell - on the toptier site, Kwik Trip was the first brand listed. A convenience store chain. WTF? That right there tipped me off that they must be involved in the whole thing. Sure enough, the headquarters for QT and the registered address for the Top Tier website were THE SAME! Very interesting. Usually an unbranded chain will source gas wholesale from whomever has the best price at the moment, but apparently QT uses a single, "Top Tier compliant" source, or only sources from those who meet the standard. Or something. Very odd that they are apparently the source of the "club" though.

 

It happened to me too, yesterday! I had a bad start and got the CEL with the High emissions message. Dealer found the High Pressure Fuel Pump was the problem. Replaced under warranty and I do notice that the car runs better.

How long do those HPFP last? Hopefully for as long as I plan to own the car - 10 years...

 

I will hold back my venting until I get more information from the service manager I talked to yesterday. Basically this is what I know so far.

They quoted me over $1200 to replace the high pressure fuel pump (HPFP). I asked them if they tested the pump, or checked the fuel filter. The response I got from the SA was not satisfying. I was told they didn't check the pump. They do not have a tool for that. They didn't check the filter. They have never replaced a filter at the dealership there. They drive the car around, and it ran fine. The "only" issue was the surging idle. The timing chain tensioner is the OEM faulty model before Mini came out with a new replacement part in May 2009. The car is out of warranty by 1000 miles, so we are responsible for the repair. They did pull the fault codes, because I asked them too!, and there are misfires on all cylinders per the tech.

Fine on the warranty. However, I am not dropping $1300 on a guess from a tech that hasn't bothered to use his brain or lack of skills to diagnose our car. The service manager was nice to me, and said he'd go ahead and have the tech test the gas in the car to see if it's bad. That's how they test the fuel pumps. What?!? This isn't a test. If they care to know the state of the gas in the tank at this moment, fine. But that isn't testing a HPFP, tank pump, filter, pressure regulator, or PCV valve. Test for the problem, don't create an excuse!

 

Stand firm! A $1300 "guess", that they're miraculously even admitting to, is NOT acceptable. Period.

Here's an idea - see if they'll sign something agreeing to refund your money IN FULL if the new HPFP doesn't solve the problem. If they do, proceed. If they don't (my guess, the more likely response) then get MINI involved. This is ridiculous. Good luck and keep us posted.

 

A resolution finally...

It was the vanos solenoid causing the idle surging and "off timing". The Timing chain tensioner was also bad, and was replaced with the "newly redesigned part". R56 Mini runs good now....

The timing was checked by the dealership early on. They said it was ok. The fact that the tensioner and vanos solenoid was bad proves otherwise. I'm not sure why this was so painful to diagnose, but we are glad it's fixed and our Mini is back to us. Moritz and Mini covered most of the service costs. We were told that they did swap the HPFP, plugs, coil packs, and other stuff, during the diagnoses. None of that had any effect.

We will be replacing the fuel filter on both Mini's as soon as we get the chance. Just to be safe.

 

That's nice to hear. What I didn't like hearing was how the proposed to diagnose the bad HPFP. Mine threw a code but I forget the number (I started a thread on it in last New Years I think).

 

It is not the dealership but bmw that wont fix the problem.Dealerships are paid to fix thing by either the customer or the factory,the factory is the one with everything to lose not the dealer.If Bmw will not post a tsb for the problem on the car then the dealer will not get paid by bmw.


I m a dealer I know about how the factory works.

As a second generation Dealership owner i m offended by the term STEALERSHIP