What do you guys think? have replaced the HPFP three times now and this last time I got the fuel filter replaced as well. The car has 96k miles now and thought it was appropriate to replace the filter. I had heard that Mini had these fuel filters go as lifetime filters. I went ahead and replaced it and it was filthy!!! looked like a used oil filter. The canister that holds the filter had a significant amount of sediment which looked like degraded rubber residue. Thinking that the filter being clogged is a contributor to these HPFP failures. Could be causing the pump to starve, overheat and maybe vapor lock. Be proactive and replace the fuel filter. Super easy 10 minute job. Let me know what you all think. Thanks

 

If the fuel filter is serviceable I think it good automobile care to replace the fuel filter on some schedule. I'm reluctant to accept a filter that is serviceable is a lifetime filter. Lifetime? Of what? The HPFP? A pet cat?

Various cars of mine over the years have had a fuel filter than ranged in size from one no bigger than a paper coffee cup to the entire housing of the fuel pump. In this latter case the fuel filter was part of the pump housing and consisted of a very fine mesh in the housing plastic. When this pump quit, at around 200K miles, the housing had some debris caught in the mesh but there was plenty of mesh with no debris to continue to allow gasoline to freely flow through and on to the pump's fuel intake.

The fuel filter appeared to be quite adequate too. The injectors were all working just fine -- at 200K miles -- and continued to work fine right up until I sold the car with 317K miles on it. Might mention that with 200K miles and allowing for an average of 25mpg -- which is being generous -- that means the fuel filter filtered 8000 gallons of gasoline that the fuel pump then pumped to the engine. Each injector -- 6 in all -- sprayed 1333 gallons of gasoline into its cylinder. At 317K miles that 8000 gallons became 12680 gallons. And each injector sprayed 2113 gallons of gasoline into its cylinder.

All cars but the one with the fuel filter as part of the housing had serviceable filters and I had the fuel filter placed (or replaced it myself) on schedule. The filter that was part of the housing was a lifetime filter. The lifetime of the pump. The new pump came with a new housing and with the same fine mesh.

On the subject of filters I did let an engine air filter go a long time -- I don't know how long -- and when I finally got around to changing it the top of the filter element which was foam that covered the paper filter proper was covered with trash mainly leaves. I replaced the filter and the engine ran better after. Air filters are important, in case there was any question..

 

I agree with your comments. I believe that the service schedule on Mini manuals are poorly written and subject to the Service Department's interpretation. Which varies. I was told that the Automatic transmission fluid was not to be changed on My Clubby. Also, the fuel filter I was told the first time the HPFP was replaced by the dealer, that this was a lifetime item. This fuel filter is not sold at NAPA and I am assuming it's because Mini is not calling for this filter to be replaced. My point is that all the HPFP failures could be attributed to this filter not being replaced on a schedule of say 30k or 60k. Also, the engines grenading I know is a result of their oil change interval of every 15k ie. people do not check their oil for 15k miles. Their whole service schedule is poorly written and poorly though out.

 

Possible but doubtful. Seeing how people have had HPFP fail with less then 10,000 miles and some people like myself had theirs last until 140,000 and many are in between. From my understandings what fails on our HPFP is a rubber o-ring on the solenoid or the solenoid itself.