Supposedly, MINI USA sent out a letter to some owners of cars equiped with the N18 engine, (either earlier this year or late last year) explaining an extended warranty on the turbo. It's supposed to be covered for certain "defects" for up to 10 years or 120K miles. I'm an owner of a Mini with the N18 engine but never received a letter. If anybody received this letter, can you please post the contents of the letter explaining just exactly how to file a warranty claim. Many thanks.

 

http://www.motoringfile.com/2018/02/...r-s-turbo-faq/
https://dealers.miniusa.com/owners/t...rt/recall.html
https://www.nhtsa.gov/recalls?utm_so...Fall17#vehicle

 

 

I posted that in the other thread. https://www.northamericanmotoring.co...ml#post4395503

 

 

 

I ordered a custom Countryman MINI in 2012. I also purchased an extended warranty. The car has been meticulously maintained. It has 114,000 miles on it. Low mileage for a 9 year old car. Now it needs a $5,000 repair because of the oil feed to the turbo engine. MINI USA is saying tough luck, it does not fall under their extended warranty. Seriously, MINI will not stand behind their product? I would be happy to join a lawsuit.

 

That’s so frustrating isn’t it? The rep from MINIUSA actually hung up on me when I pressed him to tell me what they changed on the vehicle or production process between 2011 and 2012 that made for the cut-off, because they MUST have fixed the problem then right? Click.
I laugh a little bit about it now, because it’s so absurd, but I was definitely not finding any of it humorous at the time!
They never did do anything to help me in the end. The guys at Seattle MINI really did try to get it covered from their end too, and ended up doing me a solid later on when my HPFP went out, outside of the warranty by about 7000 miles, and it didn’t cost me a dime for a brand new one.
In the end I did the turbo replacement myself in my driveway. It wasn’t too bad, but that’s not for everyone. But I did save at least $1500 on labor, got a little bit bigger turbo and did several other things with the money I saved, including an ECU remap from Mariokart.
Its still a raw deal though, and the corporate end of MINIUSA and BMW North America were just terrible to deal with.
Keep me in mind if you ever hear of a class-action or something..... I would not mind being reimbursed for the parts.

 

An oil feed line does not age directly with the number of miles driven. The O-rings just age out, maybe there were additives in the oil at some point, who knows.

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A lot can affect it. It starts to get coked up in that line if you go too long between oil changes, and if it gets too hot too. It’s pretty tough to estimate it just on mileage because so many factors can be involved. Then it starts starving the turbo of oil as the inside diameter shrinks.
Or like mine, the oil feed was fine, but my wastegate was shot.

 

Wonder if that was right around the time they changed the weight of the Mini oil.