Ok, I'm a new guy to this board, and a new guy to MINI ownership. I've had my '06 MINI Cooper 5 speed for about 2 months now and absolutely love it. The dealership took care of a bunch of things for me as I am almost out of warranty, but one of the things I'm wondering about is the motor mount. They said it was ok, but look at the picture below. Did it go out and then get replaced? How do I know if it is new or not?





Also, look at the picture below. Are those brown wires supposed to be exposed like that, or am I missing a part. Seems strange to just have them hanging out like that.



Thanks for your help, and thanks for being such a great community. I never noticed all the MINIs until I got one, but it's great to wave everytime I drive past one. Just like when I had my motorcycle.

 

The wires are normal...seems odd to me too...but they are all like that!!
As for the motormounts...looks like there has been a leak at some point....the oil in them is thick...kinda sticky...and the stain is hard to remove...I think rubbing alchol will clean it up...then just watch for movement and new stains....with the oem mount, it is not a matter of if it will fail....but when....

 

Photo 1 - your hydraulic engine mount is/was leaking. That is what the brownish residue is. Very common issue for latter 04/05 and 06 models. They should have caught that...........

Photo 2 - Yes that harness and plug is normal.

Photo 3 - Another shot of the leaking engine mount. As long as it's still under warranty, have the dealer fix it asap.

Not sure of how many miles you have on it, but I would also have them check your:

front/rear control arm bushings.
Power Steering Pump cooling fan.

And find out when it last had an oil change. MINI recommends change intervals at every 15K miles. We all do it around 5K miles. Besides being totally ridiculous to wait that long, the effectivness of the oil filters would never last that long and with these types of engines waiting that extra 7-8K miles to change it is loooking for trouble.

 

Thanks for the replies so far. They replaced my cooling fan and my power steering fan already, thanks to some posts I read here. They also checked my control arm bushings and said they looked like they were new, so I guess I'm ok, except that they also said the motor mount was ok. It sounds like replacing a motor mount is not that difficult. Should I just go ahead and get one of the third party replacements and do it myself? I have a friend who also has a MINI who is pretty handy, as am I, so maybe we'll just do both of ours.

Oh, and an oil change by me is coming up. I prefer to do my own oil changes, and they will be every 5k miles. I'm going to change the transmission fluid at the same time.

 

Stick with OEM, my 2 cents.

I would stop in to your local MINI dealer and introduce yourself to the SA there. Have him run your vin or use your key to gather data on what service/repairs has been done so far. Could be the mount was replaced, but just in case I would hold off on cleaning up the area until you check that out first.