Hello, All!

I'm having some issues with my 2007 MINI Cooper S over the past week or two and was wondering if anyone has had similar issues and can provide some advice.

About a week ago while driving on a decently hot day in Las Vegas, my yellow engine malfunction light came on. When I checked my owner's manual, it said there was reduced engine capacity, to moderate speed and have the engine checked as soon as possible. I tried filling up my gas tank and putting the gas cap back on with no luck. The car wasn't driving any different than usual despite the light being on, but I drove the car to the dealership the next day regardless.

When I first arrived the service technicians explained that typically that light indicates a problem with the turbo charger or the high pressure fuel pump. After a day or so of checking it out, they determined that my vacuum pump was leaking oil, and the vacuum tank and line were clogged with oil. As a result, they replaced my vacuum pump, vacuum line assembly and vacuum tank. In the final inspection they also noticed that the thermostat was stuck open and leaking so they replaced the thermostat assembly as well.

Finally, I went to pick up my car and I was very happy to hear that all of these repairs were covered under my warranty (I have 49,600 miles on the car!). I drove the car off the lot and as I hit the gas to get on the freeway I watched and listened to the car to make sure it sounded okay. I hit about 70 mph and the same light came back on!

Needless to say I was not happy... I took the car back to the dealer three days ago. I pulled into the dealer, shut the car off, and waited in the office for about 10 minutes before the service technician went to drive my car into the service area. Interestingly, the battery was dead and the car wouldn't start. After he charged the battery, the car started fine, but the scan tool was spitting out a bunch of strange over/under voltage error codes.

Every time I've called to get a status update, they tell me that they can't figure out what's going on with the car.

I bought this car used about 6 months ago from a high end private dealership. The previous owner had leased the car, done all the maintenance on time (since it was all covered) and I haven't found any record of major problems prior to now. I really love the car, but I'm starting to worry that this is the beginning of a long stretch of problems.

Has anyone had similar issues? Any idea what the problem could be?

 

I forgot to mention that the check engine light came on while the service technician was test driving it so they cleaned all the intake valves as well.

 

What are teh ACTUAL fault codes the dealer is pulling?
You've given us the 'what' problem, but you haven't provided the 'why' or 'how' yet.
Not much we can comment until you retreive some hard evidence data from the scanner.

- Erik