So I bought my first MINI last Saturday. A 2005 Cooper S, 6speed. 130K miles.
Drove it home (to my friend's house where I'm keeping it), all smiles for 75 miles. Parked it.
Went to go take it for a drive today, a week later, and I saw this:


Any idea what this oil leak might be? It leaked when running, not so much when off. I had it idling when I parked
it, messing with the radio and whatnot...
Any ideas are appreciated.
Thanks,
Matt

 

Moving you to the Stock Problems/Issues area.

Could be 1. AC condenser but if you cold are, forget. 2.) Could be the oil pan. 3.) That is close to the crank sensor o-ring. You have a PPI on it?

 

1- AC seems to work, fan speed was varying a bit up/down, but it was cold
2- Oil pan gasket? I don't think that'd be too major of a job?
3- What is a PPI?
Thanks

 

Pre Purchase Inspection.

The o-ring is a $5 part but you need to remove the front end to access and with those miles you have, at that time would do the water pump as well.

Belt, belt tensioner, crank pulley, t-stat, power steering hoses and all the fluids are some other maintenance items that should be reviewed.

 

Here's a useful "how to" from Mod Mini on replacing o-ring and oil pan gasket.

 

You should be able to track where the oil is coming from. It might be as easy as tightening the oil drain plug depending on how it is dripping down the block. O ring will drip down front of block about halfway across. Oil pan should be pretty obvious once you are under there. Best of luck!

 

Stop the guess work, you need to get inabout and inspect that side of the engine to find the source. Quite a few potentials to look at, start at the top of the engine and work down. Crankshaft oil seal behind flywheel is another leaky part. That much oil on the floor, shouldn't be hard to find your leak up on axle stands and a good torch. In the menatime, keep that oil topped up, low oil will wreck your engine, this machine needs oil bigtime!

 

That leak looks to far to the left to me to be the crank sensor o-ring, looks more like it is coming from the dip stick o-ring, either way, you will need to put the car in Front End Service Mode. Once you take the front off, (not a daunting task, I got it down to 20 mins), you will be able to see tons of things that need to be serviced..

 

Thanks for all the input everyone!
It's going in for a proper inspection (it was an impulse-buy for a car I always wanted) at a local MINI shop on Friday -
I'll be sure to keep oil topped-up for my drive over there...

 

if you are going to do this yourself you should prepare to do as much as you can afford while you have the front end off ( which is not very hard to do )
such as service the super charger again not hard to do , water pump , thermostat and housing , o-rings for sensor and dip stick tube , check your serp belt and tensioner , valve cover gasket ...
have a good time and enjoy your new toy ...........

 

And save allot of money that you can then put into mods!!!!!!!