I read the all the posts. I looked at the miniguide how-to. I bought my oil, filter, 36mm socket. I was ready to change my oil. Having 3k miles on a used mini I bought with 2400 miles.
Things went downhill from there.
I suspected something was amiss when something came rattling out of the oil filter housing as I unscrewed the filter lid. Looking around my garage floor I found a coil spring about 1" long about 1/2" in diameter. Funny the guides don't mention any springs inside the housing.
The non-rubber end of my filter was staring at me as I pulled the filter and cap from the engine. Looking at it I thought it was supposed to be the other way around but I could have been wrong.
The new filter looked just the one I removed from the car. I thought at the time this was a good sign. (Non S mini's should come from the factory with a different filter according to the T.S. bulletin I got from the dealer later # SI M00 06 02)
So I clean up the spring and put it back in the filter housing. I put the new filter in the way the old one had come out. I lubed my o-ring and proceeded to screw it back on. Gee I thought this went on awfully easy. What was all this fuss about getting it on in the miniguide. I started the car and let it run. The oil light went out and it sounded ok for about 30 seconds and then the oil light came back on. I stopped the car and started checking around I didn't see any oil on the floor right away but a few minutes later I saw a puddle forming under the car. What fun cleaning up spilled oil. I took off the cap and tried again same result. more oil to clean up. So now it was time to panic.
So after a few frantic calls this is what I think happened.
As my filter was not the orignal factory filter, I believe the 1st owner had also done an oil change. Putting the filter in upside down.
Because there are no pictures on the net or references to the extra parts in a cooper housing ie. spring and plastic guide sleeve he wasn't aware they should be there and he tossed the plastic sleeve out with the old filter.
He did one thing right that I didn't he got the o-ring in the correct slot, so it didn't leak.
So I'm missing the plastic sleeve from the filter and have a new housing, spring, and sleeve on the order (the only way the dealers sells them $22)
If you have an MINI S the guides are correct. If you have regular mini you should have a plastic guide sleeve and spring inside you filter cap.
Waiting on parts

 

Suddenly, the $75 I paid the dealer for my 1500 mile oil change seems like a real bargain.

 

Good for you RKMaroon for struggling through this and posting some practical tips for those of us who will eventually try it. :smile:

I had/have a canister filter on a 30-year-old BMW straight six...and even with all the room that car has around the engine (acres compared to the MCS), it totally sucked to change the oil. I think for the MINI I'll eventually get one of the spin-on adapters and use a modern type filter. Does anyone have experience with these, and do they violate your warranty if you get one before warranty is up?

 

Sounds like you may have encountered an early filter set-up. At some date, they all became the same . Read down thru this thread.
Oil change info

 

Splicer - exactly. Thanks for tracking that down. I'm sure glad I don't have one of those setups. Just the metal canister and the filter. I did find it to be surprisingly easy to reseat the canister on the engine block with the filter inside (based on what I read), so I think the key is making sure to pre-fit the holes in the filter onto both the engine block and the column inside the canister before trying to screw it back on.

RKMaroon - for what it's worth, I'm surprised that you only paid $22 for that stuff, considering that some of us paid $12 for the measly filter! Sorry to hear about your troubles.

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2003 Red/White Cooper - Brookline, MA