Alriht, I know that here’s tons of threads about burping the coolant but I can’t seem to get past the my R56 cooper s overheating. I replaced the gasket for the oil filter housing and replaced the coolant with new. When I refilled it the heater works and the car seems normal until it gets to operating temperature. It overheats with the fans turning on at 230 and 235 degrees but it won’t cool down unless I turn on the heater inside the car. I’ve tried burping it using the vent screw and used all methods that I’ve found in the threads but to no avail. Should I drain it and start over or does anyone have any suggestions that I can try? Everything is working as in the hoses get hot, the thermostat is opening, the lower hose does not get hot though. I’m using an obd reader to check the temperature. Any help is appreciated.

I’ve tried that but it still is airlocked. Would putting it so that the passenger side is higher so that the coolant would displace the air possibly work? My thinking is that the air is trapped in the one place that doesn’t have hoses, the top passenger side of the radiator. Does this sound feasible or am I fishing. My only other option is to drain it and start all over again.

So, after spending the weekend trying to purge my mini I haven’t gotten any further than I was before I started. It does work better but still overheats if I don’t have the heat on full. I was looking at Ecs website and saw a vacuum coolant purge tool. Would this be beneficial instead of spending a week messing with the car and not making much progress? $77 bucks and I can solve a major pain. My Touareg never gave me problems like this....other problems but I could bleed it in a heartbeat.

I had an oil leak that I traced to the oil filter housing, so I replaced all of the gaskets for the oil side as well as the coolant side. I refilled the system and all was well but I forgot to put the clamp on the bottom of the coolant tank and it let go. The car showed overheating and smoke everywhere from the coolant. I refilled it as before and haven’t been able to get it to bleed after that. I know there was air in the system from me limping it home, but not sure why it’s being such a pain to bleed after.

That seems excessive but, no I haven’t gone to that extent. Just heating it up and cooling it down, refilling and bleeding when cool and while at temperature, and squishing the hoses to get stuff moving around. There seems to be a thousand methods and I’ve tried several and gone through about a half gallon in total but I think that a couple of times that I might have introduced air with purge valve open and squeezing the pipes allowed air that I didn’t account for.

I pressurized the system and found a small leak in the bottom radiator hose at the plastic connector. If you squeeze it, you can hear air bubbling in. I ordered a full silicone replacement for the entire system. The previous owner didn’t care much if oil got everywhere and rotted some hoses. Thank you to everyone that chimed in their 2 cents, I really appreciate it. This car is a lot like my Touareg in that once you figure stuff out and have the right tools, this car is fairly easy to work on.....but it is a money pit.

Most of these posts don’t have any resolution so....Allllllrighty thennnnn. Silicone hose kit didn’t fix it. I ended up replacing the thermostat housing on a whim and the lost all boost after it was all put back together. Found a hose that got disconnected during the replacement process and all was well. The overheating is gone even though the thermostat ohmed out as good and it opened and closed out of the car at about 200 degrees. The car sits nicely between 220 and 225 degrees under hard accelerations with no heat turned on in the cabin to skew top end heat. Thank you to everyone who gave their advice, it was a very frustrating process but it all worked out in the end.