Ok so heres the run down... I have a 2007 Mini Cooper S 6 speed. I have been burning oil for quiet a bit of time now. When I take off from a light i see some smoke and if I am cruising along at 30mph and downshift I get a nice puff of smoke out of the exhaust. Heres a run down of what I did:

- New Valve Cover
- Carbon Cleaning
- Did a leak down test and it passed with flying colors
- Did a compression test and had 155's across all 4 cylinders pretty much pegged the dial on the snap on tool.
- No excessive blow by in the in the take tubes and Intercooler pipes.
- No Turbo Shaft play

My mechanic thinks its the valve seals are bad. He even spoke to a seasoned tech at Mini and he said the same thing. At the same time you cannot rule out the turbo. I was ready to go Manic Stage II with Mario but I would need to get that fixed before doing so.. I would love to hear everyones thoughts on this..

 

If it passed a leak down test and with compression like that, it's not valve seats.

Do you mean valve seals?

 

Yes sorry the seals.. I'll correct that..

 

Good day:
Were you able to get the valve stem seals replaced? I have the same issue and it is around $2500 at the dealer.

 

No I haven’t gotten around to it... I might just end up selling the car in a few weeks and buy a brand new car as a daily driver. I don’t feel like spending any more money on the car.

 

I'm in the same boat. Debating rebuilding the head or turbo, I'd hate to find out it's the other.

 

It seems like every second gen car needs valve guide seals at this point of their age. The valve guide seals on every head we've ever taken off are rock hard, and some are even able to be crumbled.

You're about $2500 like stated above to do valve guide seals, as to do them right we pull the head and do a valve job at the same time, (which also includes the valves being decoked and valves lapped.)

 

I ended up doing the head and valves to stop smoking. $2700 including new valve cover, prior to doing so spend a lot of $$$$$ to cure but nothing worked. My car now runs great and strong.
Ben

 

Hey, did you just put on a loaded head (with valves)? OR did you rebuild?