A few weeks ago,,,all was normal with my Mini. I gave it a bath and parked in the garage until I was ready for work 5 hours later.

My car is a 2006 S 6 speed manual hatchback with 115K on it.
Has been a good car up to this point. While traveling to work, I made a brief stop turning off the car. Back at the car I started it up, I put the car into 1 gear and started to move forward and hear a loud bang...the car lost 2/3 of its power, service engine pop on, Very little power was felt, engine running very ruff. I switch the engine off for about ten seconds and restarted the car...it started normally and ran normally for 30 sec and dropped back into the sick mode.....running very ruff and it did before the restart. it did this 3 more times on my way to work The last time it did this...I got a low voltage and A very high tempature indication on the dash. I pulled over and took 5-7 minutes looking under the hood for anything abnormal. Nothing found , drive belt on, did not feel hot...no reason to think anything was wrong.

I got back into the car started it....ran normally 30 miles into work. The next morning, it took me all the way back home...no problem. I did notice a ticking noisy coming for the area of the auto drive belt tensioner / adjuster.

Over the next few day, I drove the car back and forth to work. It ran normally accept the ticking noise is getting louder. So much so that I parked the car until I could dig into this problem more. I was convinced that the tensioner bearing was bad. I purchased a replacement and removed the assy from the car. I found the bearing in good shape ...now I think the problem is someplace else. Fellow...I'm looking for direction on this problem. I have an R53 engine and the cam chain adjuster my be the problem...Harmonic Balancer may be it....I'm not sure....HELP PLEASE..

 

Any codes thrown, CELs? I know earlier R53's (pre-04ish) had probs with crank pulleys comming apart that sounded like cards in bicycle spokes. Could be your issue maybe?

 

Pretty good chance it is the crank pulley.......

 

The rubber on it fails...and it starts to slip....gradually worsens or goes all at one time.
The lowvoltage light is the tell...lets you know the belt is not turning...so no alternator, and temp is from no waterpump.....it is runn off the bottom of the sc.