My Mini is still having issues. The car is losing horsepower and I'm getting really sick of this POS French engine.

Quick recap. R56 turbo 1.6L, 65K miles.
Replaced spark plugs.
Went through aftermarket intercooler tubing looking for leaks while getting rid of the noise maker.

What the car is still doing…
The car occasionally has issues idling on a cold start and has a very difficult time making any boost until warm. It feels like limp mode with the computer pulling boost and timing. After the engine heats up it feels better.

Other times the car will start up fine and drive with the usual amount of boost and power.

Usually the car drives and heats up fine but will show a significant loss of power at lower RPMs after driving for 30 minutes or so. It will still makes boost but below 3,000 RPMS the torque will drop off and require more throttle to maintain speed. It feels like the car no longer wants to sustain boost pressure at lower RPMS. If I drive around at 2,000 RPMS the engine lurches with a loss power like I down-shifted the engine down to 750 RPMS.

My next plan is to track down a 27mm socket for the oil filter, I plan on changing the oil and taking a look for any debris in the oil. I would also like to figure out where the fuel filter is and replace it as well.

Here are my two different ideas of what may be wrong. Please add your feedback.

#1 The cam chain may be too lose, causing a lag in valve-timing creating a loss of power and not creating enough exhaust pressure for the turbo. Note that I don’t have the loud cam chain noises. There is some valve train noise on startup but most of the engine noise seems to be related to the DI system. I am leery to pull the valve cover due to causing an oil leak and breaking the cheap plastic connectors of the PCV and vacuum system.

#2 The turbo bearings may be wearing out. I was surprised to see no heat shielding on the oil lines into the turbo. I'm concerned that the oil may be cooking in the turbo lines and causing premature bearing wear in the turbo. An unhappy turbo that doesn't want to turn freely would have a hard time spinning when cold and might not want to make boost at lower RPMS.

I don’t want to take the car to the dealer because I am not confident in their abilities to fix the problem. I assume what they would do is just start replacing parts, racking up a few thousand dollars in repair bills until they have happened to replace whatever was the problem. I am not confident in the average BMW tech being able to repair an engine.

This was great car only a few months ago, I wish I knew what is wrong with her.

 

Do you know if it was replaced?

Take it to a MINI specialist then. Where are you located?

 

The dealer won't give me the past service history on my mini.

I'm in Salt Lake City.

 

How about fuel delivery? HPFP seems to be a common repair.

 

Ask for the service manager or call another dealer even if it is not in your area.

 

This why I was going to replace the fuel filter. What is HPFP?

The car runs so inconsistent that I've been struggling to nail down what the issue might be.
I have a lot of experience working on my own vehicles from installing aftermarket turbo systems to rebuilding Mopar Torqueflite 727s. But with this car there are too many variables caused by poor engineering and over-complication.

 

I'll make some calls...

 

High Pressure Fuel Pump. What you describe kind of sounds like fuel starvation so I just throw that out there as a guess. You will find plenty of information out here on HPFP but I have not experienced the failure myself. Do a search and you will be able to rule it in or out pretty quick, I believe. Good Luck!

 

It read some of those threads and it does sound like the HPFP. With inconsistent performance and starting. I think what specifically points towards the pump is when I need to keep the RPMs about 2500 to keep it running.

I didn't think it was a fuel pump issue because I could hear the in-tank fuel pump come on with ignition and I figured that a mechanically-driven fuel pumps would last a lot longer than 60K miles.
After reading here on the forum it looks like those pumps fail quite often, they fail so often in fact that MINI has extended the warranty for the high pressure fuel pump to 120k miles, is this true?

 

Your Mini does have a turbo cooling system to prevent coking the bearings. Has yours had the recall service for this yet? (Recall is for 2007-2011 R56S models..the controller circuit board can catch fire). Also... a 1 1/16" socket is a 27mm substitute.

Jon in SC

 

100K on the fuel pump, is this a MINI you purchased used or new?

The dealer should be more than happy to pull the history. Call Schomp in Denver/Littleton, ask for Rene Watson, see if she can dump to a PDF and email the history to you.303-734-7510.

What if any MODS are on the MINI that you have done or were done before your purchase, that can tell a lot about the MINI in general.

Rene is a SA and MINI owner.

 

I bought the Mini at the end of this summer and have really loved it. It seems pretty stock with the stock airbox and exhaust. It does have aftermarket silicone intercooler hoses from the turbo to the I/C and from the plastic I/C hose to the intake.

When I bought the car I bought it from a nice lady who was the second owner and had done nothing to the car other than check it's oil and take it in for service.

Thank you for the Denver contact.

I have just a bit of buyers remorse with all he possible issues that these cars can have.

 

On my first MINI (R56-S) and just recently on my R55 JCW I have had to replace the thermostats due to failure. Both times the thermostat was generating a false reading and sending information to the computer showing water temps higher than they actually were. This caused rough cold starts and eratic engine response due to the incorect fuel mixture provided since the computer thought the engine was warmed up when it was still acutally cold and would interpret normal working temp as too high. The R-56 got so bad that the car would go into limp mode and the overtemp light would come on. Thermostat replaced by dealer, problem solved.

My most recent event with my R-55 JCW was noticed one cold morning when car had sat over night and would not start on first attempt, then run rough for next 15 minutes. Problem would get better once the car warmed up to proper operating temp however the cooling fan would run continuously in an attempt to bring down the false high temp. I then noticed on the following starts with cool / cold engine, that when first starting the car my Scan Gauge was showing a water temp of 145 degrees and would rise rapidly to 225 where the cooling fans would come on and stay on until five minutes after engine was shut down. Let car set overnight with approximately 40 degree abient temp. Next morning put key fob in and turned power on with out starting to power up Scan Gauge and once initialized it read 143 degree water temp in a cold engine. Took it to the dealership, diagnosed as faulty thermostat, replaced under warranty, problem solved.

 

fwiw, the HPFP warranty is to 120k miles.

 

French engine?

 

Another issue that you might be experiencing would be carbon build up. I started Seafoam treatments on my R56 at about the same mileage as your car is now and would see a marked improvement in performance and gas mileage each time. I used to run a third of a can of Seafoam every 8-10K miles up until I lost a cylinder at 178,000 miles.

 

At which point did you spray in the sea foam?

That's nice to know that your car went 178K miles, I really want to keep this car forever but I just need to get it reliable first.

 

Through the PCV tube.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_engine

 

Try Alex's autohaus in Midvale, they were recommended to me by someone else and have done perfect work on my care at affordable prices. The owner is German I believe, so he must be good

 

Thank you Viper.

 

I got a hold of the dealer (had to call Denver), the car has not had any work done under the warranty in regards to the timing chain and tensioner. The water pump was replaced last year under the recall. The water temp sensor was not replaced at that time. The car hasn't had anything else done to it other than the standard service items.

I made sure that my car qualified for the extended warranty for the HPFP and it does. I'm guessing the issue to be either the fluid temp sensor or the fuel pump, either should be an affordable or free repair.

I'm going to clear out the codes tonight and drive her for a few more days to see make sure the issue can be replicated by the dealer.

I'm scheduled to drop her off at the stealership this weekend.

Thank you everyone for your feedback today. I especially appreciated the information in regards to the fuel pump as I hadn't considered that as an issue.

I'll let you all know how it goes, wave if you see my on the road.

 

The dealer helped me to get her all fixed up. The intake tube between the air box and the turbo needed replacing. At the turbo intake the hose clamp had been over tightened and had split the hose, resulting in an air leak that the computer didn't like.

Also, there was moisture condensation in the intercooler system which may have been causing issues with the throttle. The dealer tech mentioned that ice can pool at the throttle valve and stop the throttle from opening and closing.

The car seems a whole lot happier now that we have these issues resolved.

Thank you for the help.

 

I would still put on your list for a carbon clean out.

There is a great DIY on NAM where a guy got his very clean by hand. But the walnut shell blaster is more effective.

Once carbon build up starts to get bad , seafoam will not clean it out on its own. But after you have it cleaned out , regular seafoam treatments will keep it cleaner, longer.

 

And your dealership did right by you! Kudos to them and good luck to you and your MINI.