+1 on the oil pan leak, one other thing you can check to verify the oil is coming from the pan is too look above it and look for the see if there is oil coming from the oil pipe line on the back side of the turbo. I had one in the past leak down the line and drip in that area. If you find no leak on the oil line top to bottom , its the pan.

Number 6 in the diagram: Oil pipe line





http://www.ecstuning.com/Search/11657534454/ES26353/




Full kit.






On the oil pan like mentioned above OEM MINI part switch to a sealant to seal the pan. We can still get the gasket in the regular form also.

# 10 in diagram



Here is the oil pan sealant for MINI update. 83190404517


http://www.ecstuning.com/Search/83190404517/ES197334/





And here is the previous oil pan gasket. 11137565928


http://www.ecstuning.com/Search/11137565928/ES2581086/






All I could find.

Once you get those checked out then you will know.

Thanks

 

Thank you all for your response. Now, I removed the splash wall behind the tire and looked closely to see if the oil is dripping from above. As from the picture attached, I seems to be coming from above the pulley. At least looks oily even there. Not sure what is up there to cause the leak. Not sure if the pulley is smearing oil as it rotates? Any insight is helpful. I have also cleaned the oil pan with a break cleaner. Will see if it shows something tomorrow. Thank you in advance.

 

Based on your above picture, it doesn't appear to be your front crank seal to be leaking fluids (might be mildly sweating past the seal, but nothing that is causing what you are seeing). I have seen plenty of oil pan gasket leaks that will sweat and leak upward towards the harmonic balancer/crank pulley and beyond (pending on severity of leak). I've seen oil pan gasket leaks so bad that fluid had worked itself far up the frontside of the engine block appearing as if the oil filter housing gaskets had failed or even potentially the turbo oil return and supply lines were leaking when it was nothing more then the pan gasket. People often think fluid dynamics (even when it comes to leaks) always follow the principal of gravity, and while they do in many situations, they do not always especially in leak situations.

Either way, if you want to be 100% sure you could just replace your pan gasket as well as front crank seal. Neither of the two are very difficult in terms of install (other then you will want to lock your crank/flywheel to ensure your vehicle does not jump timing when removing crank hub) and service/part(s) cost are minimal for both repairs. Please, do not be one of those numskulls (if you choose to do your front crank seal service) who decide "oh I can reuse my crank hub bolt" and do so. The crank hub bolt is a TTY bolt and should only be used once. Also, if you do plan to do the seal repair, please properly torque the crank hub bolt (per MINI procedures). You'd laugh and maybe think the good ol' German Torque Spec of "Gut Und Tight" will more then suffice, and It will until your hub walks a few thousand miles down the road. I've seen this happen more then I'd like to admit by people and even shops that reuse or just plain disregard proper install procedures.

Just food for thought.

Good Luck!

 

Thank You very much. I will proceed with the pan seal first in about 10 days or less. Its still cold and I don't have a garage. May I also ask if I can use a high temp rtv sealant instead of the mini sealant?

 

My 2012 with 11,000 went in for its first scheduled maintenance and the dealer said it had a slight oil leak. It was located at the solenoid. The important part to replacing this is that it could "seep" into the computer and fry the computer as it was explained to me. These were fixed under warranty. The dealer said that he has seen about 10 cases of this happening.

 

If you are referring to using something like Permatex High Temp Red you could use it, but I can not account for how well it will work as I have never used it to service an R56 oil pan gasket, only d,b & h series honda oil pans (that or hondabond which is basicly ultra grey). I would imagine it would work, but honestly the stuff you get from BMW/MINI is really, really, really good. As stated before, its not even an original BMW Part, but a Mercedes part/gasket sealant. I can vouch that other manufactures also use the same sealant for their pan gaskets. If properly serviced and installed (allowing the sealant to cure slightly prior to tightening/torquing of pan bolts) this stuff will solve your problem without a doubt. For what its worth, the pan bolts provide nothing more then a proper alignment of pan to bed plate and do not contribute to sealing process. You can actually remove all the bolts from a properly sealed pan and it will hold on for dear life to the block (if the job was done correctly) and will need quite the coursing to get it off (like mallet/soft face dead blow and quite possibly some gentle strategic prying).

 

Thank you Boost. Very informative ..

 

No problem. Best of luck to you mate. Remember, cleanliness is next to godliness when doing either of these jobs for best results.

 

hopefully my last question regarding this topic. bare with me this will sound dumb. How much of the mini sealant should I use? Do I apply it to both the mating surfaces or just the pan?

Thanks in advance...

 

I believe just the pan. Apply to the pan, let it skim over for twenty minutes then torque to spec. Now its time for a four post lift...

 

Hats off to Way and Crew at Way Motor Works !. My leak was the tirbo oil lines not the oil pan ! I bought one of there turbo oil line kits today.
I was at his place at 11am. He had a few other suggestions. He knows Mini's well ! Back to my place by Noon and drove home at 6. NO more leaks. I didn't have to remove the turbo. Great kit Way ! Your the Man !

 

I thought it was my pan. Cleaned it with brake cleaner and watched...It came down the front of the block. Way over at Way Motor Works said it was the turbo oil line... Well he was right
I bought the turbo line kit from him . Took about 5 hours. Now I'm oil leak free !

 

Oil typically does not travel up (unless it is forced up by something else) so remember to start looking for oil ABOVE the pan surface. If there is, there are several places VERY common on the N14 that I would look at. The timing chain tensioner seal ring. Oil will be all over the back of the block. Crankshaft front main seal. Oil will be on inner part of crank pulley being slung essentially onto the motor. Very likely if there is a large amount of oil on the A/C line plastic bracket next to the pulley. Turbo oil feed line. Will be oil on the front of the motor, can be heavy behind the turbo and on top of the turbo housing. And if you can't figure anything else, oil filter housing gasket. This can cause both an oil and a coolant leak. The oil will pool heavy on the bedplate bolt located behind the catalytic converter, approx. two inches above the oil pan bolts, closest to the transmission. This bolt can be seen if looking straight up from the ground with a flashlight behind the cat. Hope you find it. Get used to oil leaks. MINIs love em.

 

Thank you all for valuable information. I am sure someone looking will find this very helpful. I sold my mini as recently it started the chain rattle. From my experience, if your rpm fluctuates in the morning or when the engine is cold then sooner or later you may develop the chain rattle. I heard mini has a new tensioner.
I really miss the car. The manual shift,the turbo spool, all the long drives I took it to etc.. It had 54000 mils when I traded. Bought a rav4 v6. Its super fast too but not as fun as the mini . I really hope mini fixed the chain rattle this time for the sake of all the loyal customers here. All the best guys.

 

Does the chain rattle only happen at start? Or will it happen when driving? I've made a post recently about my engine intermittently starting to sound like a diesel (vibration and sorta a whirling diesel sound...until I put the clutch in). Noticed some dampness around the oil feed line into the turbo, but the bearing seems OK...so was wondering what else could be causing the sound. Happens like once a day now a couple times, usually starts at lower speeds around 2500rpm at like 20mph. Then continues off and on for a couple mins, then goes away. It's got me worried...more so than the slight oil leak from the oil feed line.

Edit: I've had the "cold engine chatter" from the time chain before (at like 20,000 miles...and they replaced the piston for time chain tensioner). I've got 51,000 miles now and this noise has now begun when driving recently.

 

The chain rattle happens on start(esp when it is cold. Need not be below freezing any temp below 40 I noticed the sound.) It should not go away when u depress the clutch. The clutch flywheel makes rattling noise too. So if the noise is going away when the clutch is depresses then its mostly not chain noise. Chain noise comes from passenger side, when u start the engine, you will be able to hear a distinct rattle from the passenger side. When you take off, I could hear the vrrrr tractor sound during acceleration util ~2500 rpm and would go away in a minute or so. have mini check your engine. If your tensioner is below certain measurement(there is a mini tool for it) then you only need to replace the tensioner that even you can do. There is a nice post in NAM on that with the latest part. but if it exceeds the measurement then you need to replace the whole chain assembly that is doable but not easy. You need special tools to lock the engine so you don't mess the timing. So please do not delay. The worst that happens when neglected is total engine failure due to broken timing chain. Here are some helpful links that I went through.

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...nsioner-2.html

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...nsioner-4.html

https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...laement-2.html

http://www.promini.com/technical/tec...gine-noise.php

http://www.promini.com/technical/coo...ath_rattle.php
all the best.

 

Unfortunately I don't think it's the timing chain. Doesn't happen at start. Plus I am familiar with that, as I've experienced it a couple years ago. I'm not sure if I should just take it to the local BMW dealer and hope they can figure it out, or pay for it to get towed 2 hrs to Mini...as I am sure they'd have more knowledge and any special tools.

Either way though, would most dealer shops allow me to buy the turbo oil feed line and give it to them to use to fix that issue? Or would they make me pay for their OEM part in order for them to work on it?

 

Usually the profits they make on selling the parts are part of how they pay their bills. Most shops won't give you any warranty on jobs they do with parts you supply; a few will warranty the labor, but I don't think any of them will warranty the parts. Many shops won't even do the job at all with parts you supply.

I strongly suggest you talk with the shop first to see what their policy is. If you've been using that shop for a while, and have a good relationship with them, they may be fine with it. But don't count on it.

 

Local BMW shop won't do it. MINI (2 hours away) said they would. So I just ordered the Detroit Tuned oil feed line. Hopefully it gets here quick. MINI said the engine rattle could be low oil pressure or timing chain tensioner. Could also be related to the fact that the oil feed line has a slight leak. Gotta figure out of it's cheaper to drive two separate cars (mine and my wifes) 2 hours to drop off my car, then again to pick it up, or if it'll be cheaper just to get it towed back and forth.