Here I thought I had the cold chatter issue, but after talking with my SA, with 8,000 miles on my 09 now, they said it was low on oil which was causing the noise.

They are familiar with the service bulletin by BMW, but indicated my production date was not involved with it. Service Advisor indicated some change was made to the engine which now requires more oil than it use to, but the good news is that mine "shouldn't" actually be effected by the cold start chatter. What is the production period of the service bulletin?

Seems they were going to start replace parts, but checked the oil and noticed it was down about a quart. He indicated going forward, expect to add a quart of oil every 4,000-5,000 miles.

Does this sound about right or a bunch of b.s.?

 

A car with such low miles...I personally havent heard of that happening. It sounds like something else is the matter. Do you see smoke on acceleration or revving the motor? You could have a bad seal in your pistons and its burning in the motor....

I have a little over 11K on my car now, but even between oil changes I havent lost any oil at all, and thats 5-7K between changes.

 

When was your car built?

Never seen ANY smoke.

They indicated they checked everything else out and it all looked good.

They mentioned something there was a factory change right around before mine was built that fixed the cold start chatter. Good news was they fixed the issue, bad news is it cause it to now consume more oil than it use to; Anyone else come across this?

 

Ill have to check my build date when I get off work. I purchased the car 12/26/2008 (a year ago today), but Ill look at my build date and see, since its an "09" lol.

 

4K-5K per qt is definitely well with the "normal" range, even for a new car, although it is probably a little higher than average. Personally, I wouldn't worry about it, and in any event, if the car is not leaking, running well, etc., its not high enough to start doing repairs. And I doubt Mini would make repairs under warranty unless the consumption was much higher than this. Personally, I wouldn't want them to be tearing into a new engine to solve this "problem".

5K per qt oil consumption is about 1/20th of a teaspoon per mile. You'll never see smoke at this level of consumption.

Having said all this, I doubt this level of consumption has diddly-squat to do with any fix for the cold start chatter issue. If the dealer is purporting that a higher level of consumption has something to do with fixing this issue, I'd call BS on this.

- Mark

 

The explanation was the lower level of oil was making a noise, which sounded alot like the cold chatter noise, and then went away as the car warmed up given oil then expands.

Anyone know what the cut off production date is for the service bulletin on the cold start chatter issue?

Was a modification actually made around the beginning of this year in the factory?

 

The cold start rattle is oil related. Oil pressure provides the force for keeping the timing chain taught. You need to be checking your oil level on a regular basis. Check it at least every 1,000 miles. More often is better.

 

So was a change actually made at the factory to fix the "cold start chatter" noise beginning with the 09s and that fix requires more oil consumption than before?

So does prolong low oil eventually cause damage to the timing chain which requires the replacement?

 

It's because these cars have some kind of hi-tech oil-on-demand system that, if there's not enough oil, like Robin said then not enough is getting to the tensioner and the hydraulic valve lash adjusters, thus causing what oil is in these parts to drain out, aereate, and turn into very noisy pneumatic components until adequate oil is delivered upon start up/warm up. And if there's not enough oil to be delivered, there will be problems.

Still LB that sounds like excessive consumption, so I'd get it checked out. My 09 at 9100 miles uses no oil at all.

 

Not that I know of. My dealer follows the refill guidelines to the letter. after my yearly freebie, I discovered they put in too much oil (thought my 09 had an 05 engine) and the cheerfully drained and refilled to new, I think it's 4.25 quarts (the R53 Tritec took 1/2 quart more.)

 

The hydraulic timing chain tensioner that allowed air into it's piston was updated in 4/08 and again in 11/08, according to the diagrams at RealOEM; that matches pretty close to when I was told the latest version was available when mine was swapped.

It's also expected to use more oil than usual during break-in. Mine burned about half a quart in the first 2,000, and has settled down to less than half a quart in every 8,000 or so.

 

Low oil levels could cause the timing chain tensioner to malfunction. A malfunctioning timing chain tensioner will cause timing chain damage that eventually requires replacement. Failing to replace a damaged chain can lead to engine destruction.

 

When was yours built? Was there a so called fixed for this cold start chatter made sometime early on the 09s cause my SA mentioned something about a change that was made on the 09s which now requires more oil usage than on the 07s and 08s?

 

Mine went into production in the last week of February 2009. The hydraulic timing chain tensioner that allowed air into it's piston that was updated, what exactly did this involve? Did it fix this wide spread cold start chatter? Involve more oil consumption after the change was made?

 

So sounds like the lesson learned is just be sure to keep an eye on the oil then going forward and hopefully all will be ok then.

 

Yes. Ignoring the oil can be expensive.

Hopefully, there wasn't too much wear on your timing chain while oil was low. Did the dealer check the valve timing? If it is in spec. you are OK.

If the timing chain damage puts it out of spec. it should be replaced or it can lead to serious damage. Since they could argue the problem was caused by lack of proper maintenance, you could be responsible for the cost of any repairs needed.

 

Thanks for the suggestion; will find out tomorrow.

 

September 2008 was my build date. and I have no idea about the latter. all I know is at first it affected the 07s, then MINI expanded it to the 08s, then the 09s, and since the 10s have this issue, it'll prob be them pretty soon as well.

LB I had the cold start knock twice in my first 3 months and 3000 miles last winter, and it was bad--not a chatter, but a distinct hammer-like metal-on-metal knock that sounded like excessive valve lash. after that, whenever I knew my car's engine was going to go cold (at work, overnight) at the suggestion of my Toyota mechanic (whose wife had an Mitsu Eclipse with the same issue) I started revving my engine to 3K, holding it a sec, then hitting the stop button. Voila!

Safe to say, the problem has not recurred since that time, almost a year and 7K later, sub-zero temps, parked for a week nose-down, etc. So it does have something to do with the S's oil delivery system, coupled with poorly designed hydraulic components within the valve train, components that have very tight tolerances to work with. Good luck.

 

Guess what I cannot determine is whether my is actually involved with this service bulletin for the cold chatter noise as the SA said there was a modification made prior to mine going into production and that my issue was due to a little low on the oil as they now use more oil than the use to due to the change. Does this sound right?