Wife's Car, 07 Cooper S Auto. Car has been reasonably reliable. Only about 20k miles on it. A few minor annoyances when new, but nothing major. Then, it starts:

--Late last week CEL (yellow engine) comes on. My wife is driving car. Calls me, says "car feels wierd and is running really rough". She gets home, and it's running OK. CEL stayed stored/on until today when I brought it to dealer.

--The valve death rattle. This really hasn't been an issue until a couple weeks ago... I have a video I recorded last night of a cold start and a clanky rattle. ONCE about 2 weeks ago started car and it had the marble in the engine sounds. Stopped, and it started normally.

So the car is at the dealer right now for service on both issues.

Got call from service advisor this evening. He said the CEL was dirty injectors and performed service and its fine. That sounds fishy to me given some of my readings here. Wife always uses Chevron Super (I'm in SoCal, so 91)

On the valve rattle, they are keeping it over night to check on it further.

So my questions:
--Is the dealer yanking my chain on the CEL issue? Is this an indication of a larger problem?

--On the valve rattle, I'm going to wait to see what they say, but if they don't replace a tentioner, what TSB can I point to when I talk to the advisor?

I have about 5mo of warranty left on this thing.

 

The marbles in the engine noise sounds like the common factor of the timing belt tensioner parts about to go.

Not sure if this will be your case in particular but maybe something you might want to print out and show the SA if you need to or call to his attention.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...n-to-snap.html

It's #7

I would also document on the repair sheet before they hand it back to you if it comes to that, if they mention they don't need to fix the tensioner (when in fact, you suspect it). "SA advises that the tensioner is not the problem, blah, blah". This way, if the tensioner does break sooner than later, you have proof that you were right and they were wrong.

 

Well... on the rattle... they claimed to have pulled the valve cover and checked the chain tension and that it is "within spec" which seems a different procedure than is specified in the service bulletin SI M11 02 07.

I had a long discussion with the service advisor that this wasn't acceptable and he admitted that this is a procedure that they are having to work with daily on the Mini S.

So... going down there this morning, and it's nice and cold, will start the car and rail on them if its rattling to start swapping parts.

 

I think if they won't replace the tensioner for you that I'd consider buying one and DIY. It's not that hard and beats the heck out of replacing the engine 10K from now when it does fail - and paying for it cause it's out of warranty.