So I was merging on the interstate on Saturday and boom, my car started sounding like a howling beast! (2012 JCW Roadster). I immediately said "that's not good" and my wife said "That really doesn't sound right". I limped the car home, driving under the speed limit (got some friendly one finger waves for it too, ) and kept my foot out of it. I parked the car in the garage and finally got around to looking at it today. I took the stock intake off (which is what's currently on the car), looked around, still made the hideous noise when I started it up. So I pulled the inlet off the turbo, and I see that my turbo fan (is that the right term?) is scraping and making a rather big mess! (Metal filings were inside the tube)

That doesn't look good!!!! I'm figuring the turbo bearings must have gone bad and caused it to wiggle. Whatever the cause, it's scary looking!!

Guess it's time to call the dealer again and have it towed......jeez....only 9500 Miles on the ticker too :-( 500 more and they could of changed the oil for me while they had it!

 

Wow sorry to hear and see this. Keep us posted.

 

Yikes! New or used, it's a crapshoot it seems :/

 

Car is on its way to the dealer..... The incompetent tow truck driver hooked up the tow hook wrong and most likely broke an A/C line (it spewed all over the ground) and the front bumper got pulled loose.... I can't get a break!!!!!!

 

Lets hope metal debris didn't go down stream causing further damage.

Most cars are winched up on a carrier, only the old school wreckers hook the front to tow.
I would have had to go to my happy place because i would have lost it if that happened to me.
Good luck and keep us posted on repairs.

 

Tough break. Hope all goes well getting fixed up.

 

Actually, it was while he was winching it onto the rollback...got about halfway up and "pop...hisssssss"....and he backed it back down.

 

I guess it gets worse and worse. Flatbeds and BMW tow hooks baby.

If you were running all the way home with a grinding turbo compressor wheel I would demand you get a whole new engine. It's very likely you have metal particles in the combustion chamber. It's only a matter of time before you scrub out your cylinder walls because of this very freak turbo failure If they don't do that they should clean the whole thing out, take out the pistons, check for cylinder wall scoring, and fit all new pistons/rings if possible. Man, what a disaster this is

 

+1^.

 

There is a lot of plumbing between the turbocharger and the and the intake manifold. Any metal particles would be trapped by the intercooler.

Dave

 

Smaller particles can get past the intercooler. An intercooler is not a filter. His combustion chambers probably have small metal filings and particles in them. Why even gamble? Make the dealer eat it.

 

^+1 Things can definately get past the intercooler. Not worth the risk IMO.

 

It would be easy enough to check, just pull the cold side hose off of the intercooler and see if there are any metal particles stuck to the rubber. They would definitely be there if any got that far.

Dave

 

That sucks...was that a tow sent by MINI roadside?

 

they should check the engine with a borescope at the very least.

 

Yes...the same company had towed my wife's MINI a couple of years back...was a different guy though.

 

Ok, Humor me for a second.

So some aftermarket parts were installed, i take it incorrectly and have
been sucked into the turbo causing damage. The dealer should eat it why?

 

driven2hard, I'm confused. Which aftermarket parts are you referring to? Liquid says "stock intake" in the original post.

 

It didn't sound like you had any aftermarket parts on your car. They could only blame an aftermarket part for the problem if it's the root case of the failure. Yours looks like your turbo decided it had enough of playing nice.

You have a stock drivetrain and tune so you should not be denied warranty if you're still under the 4yr/50,000mi agreement. That is why the dealer needs to pay up.

 

So there was an aftermarket clamp on the hose that connects to the turbo...I guess it's there from when I had previously put the DoS intake on, which I haven't been on the car for about 3000 miles (no time to put it back on after a photo shoot I did where I needed the engine to be stock). The car was even up to MINI after that and they stated that it had an aftermarket clamp there, but they didn't replace it, nor offer me to purchase a replacement (which I would have done, I honestly didn't know I put the wrong one back on there).

So today, they're telling me that the clamp allowed the rubber boot to be sucked up into the turbo, causing the damage. So they said my warranty wouldn't cover it, cause it was an aftermarket clamp. I talked to the dealership, MINI USA, and they all said the exact same thing.......we won't do a darn thing for you because the clamp wasn't ours. Doesn't matter that the previously noted it, that's just proof that it wasn't ours. The estimate right now is 4K to replace the turbo. They did assure me that my warranty would at that point be valid again....

So why I could see that it is partly my fault, WTF? I really don't know what else to say...I spent 43K on this car back in April, and loved MINI...ever since my 05 MCS. Now, however, my wife and I are pissed. She had been looking forward to most likely replacing her 09 MCS with a new F56....but now that we have this bad taste in our mouths, they've lost us both. She'll NOT have another MINI.......I personally will probably sell my roadster because I don't want to support a company that was this rude and unhelpful to me. I previously drove Mustangs and a few Mustang Cobras....Ford never gave a darn about my intake...they even replaced both heads on my Cobra while I had an aftermarket intake and smaller pulley on it. MINI, it seems, just wants to always blame everything else. $3 hose clamp? Oh, it got loose and caused 4K of damage....will that be cash, check, or charge?

Cliff Notes: They blame a non-MINI clamp that they identified a few months earlier but didn't bother changing, and now want 4K from me.

 

WTF. Speechless is all I can say.

 

Tell me about it....and the dealership I took it too was supposed to be one of the "mod friendly" ones. Guess that's a big bunch of BS. Guess a hose clamp is too many mods for them........

 

Go after DoS then and see if they can help. Read this

http://autos.aol.com/article/warrant...rmarket-parts/

 

I emailed him to see if he had any thoughts, though I don't think he's responsible. I guess I have to chalk it up to "DO NO MOD YOUR CAR WHILE UNDER WARRANTY". What I really hate is I had reverted the mod several several months ago, but yet it still supposedly resulted in the issue.

 

Read the link. It may help.