Boy have I got one for you guys.

My wife has an 08 Clubman S with just under 50k miles on it and it's been a pretty fun little car so far. However, it started having big problems a month or two ago. First is died on the highway because of bad PCV on the intake manifold. I replaced the intake manifold and it still didn't work. The car starts, but dies after a second or two. Luckily, my wife works for a big dealer network in the area and they have a Mini store. So we got the car towed over there so they can diagnose the thing. I thought it might have been the HPFP since it was acting like it didn't have fuel pressure. After a little research, I found that they extended the warranty on that part for the N14 engine. So it MUST be that! Right?!

Wrong. They replaced it and the car was still broken. At first, they didn't know what was wrong with it. It's always super reassuring when the dealer cannot figure out what's wrong with your car. Eventually they told us it needs a new turbo and that the valve cover is all mucked up. They only wanted $5,000 to fix it. As in five thousand dollars. With three zeroes. Remember, my wife works for the dealer. So instead of paying the price of a used car to get this job done, we got it towed back home. I popped off the valve cover and it is the cleanest valve cover I have ever seen. So that's definitely not the issue. Started messing around with the turbo, got it taken apart enough to feel that the impeller is junk, so it definitely needs a new turbo.

However, I am not convinced that just replacing the turbo will fix the car. I really think it's a fuel pressure issue. Almost all of my wrenching experience is on American cars and it's acting like a GM with a bad fuel pump. Do these things have fuel pressure regulators? If so, where is it hiding? Are the injectors or the fuel rail known to go bad?

I'll take any help and any suggestions I can get. Is it really possible that the car just won't run because of a bad turbo alone?

 

"First is died on the highway because of bad PCV on the intake manifold." Actually, the PCV system is inside the valve cover, not the manifold --- a completely enclosed system, not repairable except by replacing it. There is a hose connecting the rear PCV port to the intake manifold and that may have broken, but replacing the manifold will have negligible effect on the PCV system. Who told you the manifold needed replacing?

Both turbo and valve cover are comparatively easy to replace. Turbo is labor intensive and a "knuckle-buster", but do-able if you have wrench experience. I highly recommend the Bentley manual for instructions on putting the front-end in the service mode --- lots easier to work on the turbo. Depending on you choice and source of replacement turbos, you should be able to get away with well under $2K for parts, gaskets, etc.

"Is it really possible that the car just won't run because of a bad turbo alone?" When I blew a turbo, the car would still start and drive, it just pumped oil into the air inlet, and smoked something fierce. Sounded pretty bad too.

I'd start with the VC and turbo --- known and recommended problems. If that doesn't fix it, then worry about fuel pressure.

 

This is the cold climate package with PCV tubes attached to the intake manifold. They were visibly damaged and the dealer said the entire manifold needed to be replaced.

 

One or two of those ports being cracked would cause a lumpy idle, but the car would still run.

Not like asking for details on it will make a difference on how much you've already shelled out on parts you probably didn't need, but what was "visibly damaged"? If the port was broken off clean at the manifold I could see how they would rule it "broken", but if the tri-way connectors were the failure a quick trip to the parts store could have fixed the problem for about $2.47.

Compression numbers?

If the car has had a HPFP installed within 5K miles the chances of it needing replaced are slim to none. There is no regulator to replace or fix.

Get the car scanned with a quality tool and read the manufacturer specific codes. There is more to the story that you aren't seeing, and the dealership is a terribly source to rely on for quality information.

As for the car running with a faulty turbo, I physically split my turbo in half in my Jetta TDI and drove home.

 

UPDATE!

I figured out what's broken. The integrity of the dealer.

My wife did a little digging since she works for the dealer and it turns out they never actually replaced the HPFP. There's no repair order for it and no documentation of warranty work being done on it. They straight up lied to a fellow employee. I can't imagine what they must get away with ripping off regular customers if this is how they treat employees.

As for the intake manifold I replaced, I was pretty suspicious about that all along, but the dealer assured my wife that the whole manifold needed to be replaced. It did have the little tubes completely disconnected. It's good to hear other opinions on it, I'm sure you're right about your $2.47 repair estimate. Luckily I found a manifold on ECS Tuning for only $50, so it didn't do too much damage on my wallet.

I'll revisit this issue after my wife raises hell with the Mini service department and the warrantied part actually gets replaced. I have a strong feeling that's the smoking gun.

 

Sorry to hear that :( , hope things get taken care of.

 

Out of interest what made u believe the turbo impellor is junked?

A fault we have seen twice now is the intake hose collapsing and a big bit of it getting sucked into the turbo blades. Wrecks the turbo and is such a big piece of inlet pipe on one example blocking off airflow that the car wouldnt run worth a toffee even off boost.

Hpfp all the way first for sure. Gd luck

 

Hello Steven ,

I did not talk about the turbo impeller ? Think you must have tagged the wrong quote.

 

Sorry about that. I must have quoted you by mistake. I hit reply but meant to the thread not to your post.

"Started messing around with the turbo, got it taken apart enough to feel that the impeller is junk"

That was what i was referring to.

It comes from the OP.

:-)

RW

 

Its ok. Thought that

 

Yeah the Mini dealers are horrendous and have a well earn reputation for poor skills at diagnosing problems and flat out lying and scamming their customers, they just don't give a crap! Twice now I have caught my local dealer in a lie attempting to try and scam me, I stay clear of dealerships and go to Mini specialty shops in my area.

In my area a lot of Mini owners stay clear of Mini dealers and instead go to these smaller shops that are in direct competition with the dealerships, dealerships have a larger overhead which is why they need to generate more income and there are two ways to do just that, charge insane hourly wages ($165 hr) and scam customers of unnecessary repairs! Nine times out of ten customers get hit with repairs that fix nothing!

When you pay $165 for an hours labor you expect honest top tier technical knowledge and service, something extemely difficult to find at any Mini dealer.