Anyone else experience this? Pretty much any morning that I start my car (5-speed, 9/2002 build) when it's colder than 25 F or so, the car starts fine, but when I slow down and depress the clutch for the first light I come to (usually within 10-20 seconds of taking off), the rpms drop to 500 or less, and the idle gets extra-burbly and sounds like it's on the verge of a stall. It usually doesn't actually stall (unless it's really cold - single digits), but it doesn't sound right.

I'm not sure whether to have a dealer reflash the ECU, because otherwise the car drives great, and I've heard some real nightmare stories here about ECU updates changing the character of the car for the worse.

What do you guys think? Is this a normal or close to normal situation, or should I bring my car in?
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I have similar issues with mine, usually either reversing out of the driveway or pulling out into the road right after startup. I just let the car warmup a bit first in the cold...it's an '02 MC... 30,900 miles. I may mention it to the dealer next time I'm in, just to see what they say.

 

My 03 did it a few times in similar situations. I mentioned it to the dealer at my 10k service. They installed v36 and I haven't had it stall since.

Andy

 

Chris, that does sound like the "cold start" problem. I used to have something like this...only my car would stall shortly after starting (and it took extra long to crank to get it to turn over at all). You young whippersnappers probably don't remember cars with manual chokes or even carburated (sp?) cars where you needed to depress the accelerator for a second to open the choke...but anyhow, the MINI's cold start problem is much like trying to start a manual choke car with the choke closed.

The CD 36 software upgrade does address this issue. And for what it's worth, Peabody has the German CD and is installing the software update w/o problem. So, I'd recommend your telling them about this problem and getting the software updated. My only disclaimer is that my experience with this has been on an S and not a Cooper...so I don't know what sort of differences there may be in terms of how the software effects things.

Did you get your car back with the new transmission yet?

 

>>Did you get your car back with the new transmission yet?<<

Yup, last night. I'll update the other thread presently. Since I had already piggybacked an alignment onto my transmission visit, I didn't want to mention the cold start thing as well and wear out my welcome. It's really a pretty minor problem, and it only happens once when it does happen, so I'll probably just wait until my next scheduled service. Just gauging public sentiment...

 

Yeah, upgrade to DME version 36. Our '02 CVT initially had a tendency to "near stall" and that was software related. The car currently has DME version 33.2 and the problem has been gone for almost 1 year, plus the car drives great. I might have the dealer update to 36 in the next service stop but if it ain't broken, why fix it?

If the update does not cure the stalling, then the dealer needs to replace the engine wiring harness and the throttle body controller.

 

This is what I saw this morning:



I let the car warm up for about 5 or 10 seconds, and drove normally.

02/02 Build MINI Cooper 5-speed.

 

I have experienced this same problem this winter. The car actually did stall once or twice. Now I let the car warm up for a few minutes before I take off.